


Heroes: Resurrection

by DoesItWeighMoreThanADuck



Category: Heroes (TV), Heroes Reborn (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Major Character Undeath, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Temporary Character Death, and also one or two fake-out deaths, but i promise theres a little action here and there, ill add more character and relationship tags as i progress, it does take quite a while for certain charatcers to show up, knowledge of neil cicierega's musical career is recommended but not required, life and death is kind of a major theme of this work, lots of folks are gonna show up eventually but not yet, so you'll have to bear with me for a bit, the secondary main theme is 'gay rights.. but make it melancholy', theres a really inordinate amount of emotionally wrought phone calls in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2020-05-02 04:36:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 193,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoesItWeighMoreThanADuck/pseuds/DoesItWeighMoreThanADuck
Summary: It's been a while since the earth has been in any danger, and the remaining heroes have settled into comfortable but somber lives. Now, it looks like dark forces might be on the rise yet again. However, they aren't the only thing rising--that is to say, someone has risen from the grave, and others may soon follow. What events does the future hold? And, for that matter, are the events of the past what they seem?





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been quite a while since any major upheavals in our heroes' lives, which is just as well, seeing as they still haven't fully recovered from the last major upheavals and aren't sure that they ever will. Mohinder gets a phone call. Miko gets a customer. Noah gets a warning.

    Mohinder was just passing through Odessa when he got the call.  
    It was quite the coincidence, really, that he should have happened to be in that precise town at that precise moment. Call it fate, destiny, or perhaps luck. He had just finished performing a lecture at the local high school, during which he had been booed many times, and which had ended with a teacher stepping forward and shooing him out of the classroom once he'd drifted onto topics they deemed too liberal. He didn't know what he had expected, really, giving the presentation in Texas--no, he knew exactly what he'd thought, but it hadn't panned out that way. Those students were young and impressionable, but judging by the way they'd rolled their eyes at any mention of people with powers being treated as equals, it seemed that they had already formed their own impressions. It was a shame, really, and as Mohinder walked out of the school and into the parking lot, his mood matched the dark gray clouds gathering on the horizon.  
    While he wandered through the parking lot, trying to remember where he had parked his car, his phone buzzed in his pocket. With a pang of surprise, he checked the caller ID. It was an unrecognized number--a solicitor, most likely. However, for whatever reason, Mohinder got his hopes up as the phone buzzed again, sending its vibrations into the skin of his hand. It could have been a wrong number, or maybe--just maybe, one of the students had actually appreciated his lecture and was calling to ask about some of the points he'd raised. Clearing his throat and preparing his best teen-friendly educator voice, Mohinder held the phone up to his ear and answered the call.  
    "Hello," he said. "Mohinder Suresh speaking. How may I help you?"  
    "Hello," came a voice from the other end of the line. "I'm here, I'm living in th--"  
    They cut themselves off with a sort of strangled sound. It was a woman's voice, and… although Mohinder had only heard it on occasion, he was stunned to realize that it was a familiar one. But--no, it couldn't have been, that was impossible. Mohinder’s heart sped up with a rush of bewildered excitement as she spoke up again. Her voice, as impossibly familiar as it was, sounded off somehow. Nervous.  
    "Where'd you go when you were done?" she asked. "I'd like to know what you've become."  
    "A-are you saying to want to meet up with me?" he asked, tightening his grip on his phone. "Don't you think… if you're alive, however that may be, wouldn't it be better to let your family know first?"  
    There was a slight pause, and in the background, Mohinder heard a low rabble, like some people were having an animated conversation but were being forced to keep quiet. The speaker continued, now with a little more urgency in her voice.  
    "'Cause you're the only person in the world who'd understand.”  
    Mohinder wasn’t so sure about that, but if the caller was who he thought she was, then he wouldn’t turn down her request.  
    "And where can I meet you, then?"  
    The speaker hesitated for a moment, as though trying very hard to pick out words. "Let's go to the graveyard in cover of darkness."  
    Mohinder didn't need to ask which graveyard she meant. It would be the one right there in Odessa, naturally. The one where Noah and the twins had visited a few weeks ago to lay down some fresh flowers. The one where she was… well, where she was apparently no longer buried.  
    "Alright, then," he said, an incredulous warble worming its way into his voice. He swallowed and tried to relax his grip on the phone before he crushed the device in his hand. "I'll be sure to be there."  
    He ended the call and tucked his phone back into the pocket of his lab coat. Shock flowed through him, numbing his mind, and he didn't realize that he was holding in a breath until his lungs began to ache. Shakily, he let the breath out. This was perfectly fine, he told himself. Better than fine, really; it was amazing. A miracle, one might say, if Mohinder believed in such things, which he still firmly didn't despite life seemingly trying very hard to convince him otherwise. Besides, as unexpected and unexplained as it was, he was hardly one to turn down a friend (or, in this case, more of an acquaintance) in need. An acquaintance who had apparently just come back from the dead, even less so.  
    Mohinder eventually spotted his car parked between an old Lincoln Continental and a vintage Bentley. As he climbed inside, the caller's words echoed in his ears on a loop. She'd sounded rather frightened, and he got the impression that she was nearly as confused and disoriented by this development as he was. Mohinder placed one hand on the steering wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Outside, the sky darkened further, and a wind swept over the parking lot, stirring up autumn leaves and empty chip bags. Across the street, a gaggle of students stood smoking cigarettes and playing hacky-sack. As Mohinder pulled out of the parking lot, one of them chucked the hacky-sack at him, and he cringed as it bounced off the door of his car. Regardless of the unexpected phone call, he couldn't have gotten away from that school fast enough; he felt a pang of satisfaction as he watched it recede in the rearview mirror.  
To the graveyard it was, then.

* * *

 

    On a busy street corner (not that Tokyo had any non-busy street corners), nestled cozily between an overpriced clothing store and a cat cafe, was a small video game store called Otomo's Gaming Paradise. In the backroom of the shop, hidden from the view of any customers who happened to come in and browse around, was a small collection of items that felt too important for Miko to keep in a closet or the basement at home, but too private to have on display in the main area of the shop. These items included a few copies of bootlegged games, such as a Russian version of a Mario game with shockingly graphic game over screens, a polybius machine (no organs inside, though--she'd checked), and of course her old katana, sheathed and hanging on the wall above a pile of handheld video game consoles. Buried at the bottom of that pile, shoved deep into the shadows where nobody could find it even on the off-chance they wandered into the backroom without Miko's permission, was a little handheld device with a very special cartridge inside. Miko tried not to think about that game too much. She had won, after all, and she wasn't sure if she could go back into the game now if she tried. Actually, she didn’t really want to know whether she could go back or not. If she couldn’t, then a huge part of what made her unique was lost for good. If she could, then it would mean she was still tied to the machine and would never be a normal human. That was why she let her katana hang there gathering dust. If she unsheathed it, the thought of what might or might not happen, and what that would entail, terrified her.  
    As she stood in her backroom that day, gazing up at her katana and wondering if she should at least dust it off sometime, the chime of the bell hanging above the door pulled her out of her thoughts. She hadn't expected anyone to come in so early in the morning, but it was certainly a pleasant and welcome surprise. Putting down her stack of Mario games, she scurried out from the backroom to greet the customer who had just walked in.  
    "Hello, welcome to Otomo's Gaming Paradise," she said, putting on a grin. "How can I help you?"  
    The customer--a foreigner, a little younger than her, and mixed-race by the looks of it--returned her smile and brushed a couple stray ringlets of his hair out of his eyes. He was wearing a Pokémon t-shirt; it had a picture of Rotom on it with some English words she couldn't read. He was a fairly handsome young man, not that she was looking for a relationship at the moment. He looked a little young for her, anyway.  
    "Oh, I'm just looking," he said in somewhat clunky Japanese. "This is a nice little store you've got here."  
    "Ah, thank you," Miko said, taken a bit aback by the compliment. "You really think so?"  
    Her store wasn't much, really, she didn't think. it was just another tiny building in Tokyo's jam-packed shopping district, and without a particularly fancy sign hanging over the door or any flashy advertising gimmicks, she didn't draw in a crazy amount of business. Her game selections were limited, too, and she didn't carry any merchandise other than some magazines--not even those damn funko things that lined the walls of just about every store imaginable.  
    The foreigner nodded. "Yeah, it's nice," he said. Wandering over to the discount bin, he rummaged through the games a bit before picking out a copy of a snowboarding game from the late 90s. "Would you recommend this game for a woman with ice powers?"  
    Miko raised her eyebrows. "Are you shopping for somebody?"  
    "Yeah, my aunt Tracy's birthday is coming up."  
    "Well then!" Clapping her hands together, Miko stepped out from behind the counter and came over to the foreigner. "Let me show you some super-cool ice-themed games we have in our selection… what's your price range, do you think?"

* * *

 

    Elsewhere, somewhere on the opposite side of the globe, the sun sank low over a cottage in the woods. The cottage was small, just big enough to house two people: one bedroom, a bathroom with minimal plumbing, a kitchen, and a combination living and dining room. It had the homely look of a place assembled by hand, built with a mixture of empathy and aptitude. Inside, a fluffy black cat paced about, tail twitching. She coiled her hind legs and sprung up onto a bookshelf, nearly knocking over a framed photo of two brothers with their arms around each other. However, she steered out of the way of the photo at the last second, as though she could tell how heartbroken her owner would be if she broke it.  
Outside the cottage, two men sat on logs beside a campfire, one occasionally poking at the embers with a stick while the other intently watched the flames flicker. He spoke up after a while, in no small part to rouse the attention of his partner, who appeared to be falling asleep.  
    "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he murmured. "So transfixing. Even knowing exactly how the fire works, you can’t predict exactly how it will move. Just like sunsets--it’s something new every time.”  
    The man holding the stick glanced up, a faint smile playing on the edges of his lips. "You know what's pretty to me?" Hair hung over his eyes, but his companion could tell that they were gleaming in that special way they did sometimes. "You, Sylar."  
    Chuckling, Sylar leaned forward and reached over to touch Peter's hand. Part of him still marveled at the fact that Peter didn't shy away from the touch. He should, a deep and dark part of him thought. I could kill him if I wanted to. It would be so easy. But Sylar didn't want to kill him, not at all, and he would keep suppressing the part of him that did want to kill people until the day he died (which would probably be never, seeing as he still possessed healing abilities, and made sure to change his weak spot every so often just in case). Peter held his hand and smiled at him, the same smile he had once given to his brother, and to his niece, and to the various people he'd fallen in any sort of love with. Well, of course he'd give him that smile--Sylar was one of the people he'd fallen in love with. That had to have been the luckiest thing to have ever happened to him. He still wondered if he really deserved it.  
    For a long while they sat, hand in hand, the fire flickering between them. The heat, though uncomfortable against the skin of Sylar's arm, could no more hurt him than bullets or lightning or whatever else somebody threw at him, so he maintained his position for as long as he thought he could get away with it. The sky grew darker overhead, and the faint streaks of pink and orange were replaced by murky indigo and then lit up with a smattering of constellations. You could see a lot more stars at the cottage than you ever could in the city. Looking up, Sylar scanned the night sky and located a few of his favourite star arrangements while the fire gradually died down.  
    "We should go into town sometime," Peter mused as he stared up at the stars. "I'm almost out of T shots."  
    "How many do you think you have left?” Sylar asked. “We did just go into town a few days ago, Peter. You could have stocked up then.”  
    “I know, but…” Poking at the fire once more, Peter sighed, then tossed the stick into the fire. “I just want to get out there and interact with people more, you know? Plus, Rolex doesn’t like the food we bought her. We need to get more of the wet stuff; that’s what she likes.”  
    Honestly, Sylar didn't relate to where Peter was coming from in terms of wanting more human interaction. Talking to people had never been something he was very good at or liked to do, unless it was a specific person he really liked. Having low empathy made it even harder. But he did understand Peter very well, and he could understand why his boyfriend wanted more human contact. He certainly couldn't take offense to the fact that he wasn't enough company for Peter. Almost ten years of just the two of them and their cat living alone save for the occasional trips into town to stock up on groceries and other supplies (which they still had plenty of, for the record) was enough to drive anybody stir-crazy.  
    "Okay, then," Sylar agreed. "We'll go into town tomorrow. Remember, pick someone inconspicuous to disguise yourself as, and don't let anyone know who you are."  
    Peter rolled his eyes. "We've been doing this for nearly a decade now," he sighed. "You don't have to keep reminding me."  
    Once the fire had died down, they went inside. Sylar sat up for a while after Peter had gone to bed, taking stock of all their supplies. They weren't out of anything yet, but as long as they were going to be heading into town, it wouldn't hurt to make a few other purchases while they were at it. He drew up a list of things they were running low on, then went to join Peter in bed. Peter was already fast asleep, with Rolex curled up in the crook of his knees. Smiling, Sylar climbed into bed gingerly, doing his very best to disturb neither his boyfriend nor their cat. Outside, crickets chirped, and a loon call echoed from somewhere in the distance. Peter rolled over in his sleep, slinging an arm over Sylar’s chest; Sylar chuckled under his breath and leaned over to kiss Peter on the forehead before relaxing against the pillow and closing his eyes.  
    It wasn't a perfect life they had at the cottage, but it was a safe and comfortable life. And, all things considered, it was a hell of a lot better than it could have been.

* * *

 

   You got used to being alone after a while. Being left to his own devices was certainly preferable to being wrapped up in the type of business Noah was most accustomed to. Even so, one would think the twins, busy as they were in college, could spare their grandfather-slash-guardian figure a phone call every now and then. But once again, Noah’s answering machine only bore two messages. The first was a wrong number (unless “hi Billy, it’s me, remember that I’m coming to pick you up after soccer practice today” was some sort of code) that Noah always intended to delete but never got around to it. The other was an old message from Tracy. He replayed that message now as he stripped off his work clothes and changed into a plain white tank top and faded jeans.  
    “ _Hey, Noah_ ,” the message began. “ _I just wanted to let you know that I'm not on the run anymore. There are these old friends of Niki Sanders who never found out she died, and I’m kind of… well, I’m staying with them and kind of pretending to be Niki. I know, I know, but don’t pretend it’s worse than any of the crap you’ve done. Anyway, talk to you later, I hope. Bye_.”  
    The message ended with a click. Noah sighed and turned the answering machine off. The message was over two years old now, and that was the last time he had heard from Tracy. Either she had completely integrated into a new life with Niki’s friends and been too busy to call him back, or forgotten his number, or… well, the infinitely more likely scenario was that something worse had happened. Best case scenario, she was okay but on the run again and had decided it would be safer for both of them if she stopped calling. Worst case scenario, not only would Noah never hear from her again, but nobody would. The worst part of it all was that he had no way of knowing which of these it was. The Walker girl could have helped him find her if she hadn’t shot herself in the head, damn it all. Maybe Micah knew where Tracy was, but that boy--young man now, actually--was practically a cryptid nowadays. He was always travelling somewhere or another, spreading evo activism wherever he could. It was the same deal with Mohinder. He had no idea where Peter and Sylar were either, and he was pretty sure that was how both they and Angela intended for it to remain. And the rest of them… they were gone.  
    At least he still had Tracy’s message, to replay over and over again. He had deleted every phone message Claire had left for him, and deleted every photo of her off his phone and computer. He hadn’t been able to stand hearing her voice or seeing her face after she died. Now he wished that he could, just to remember her. He still had some physical copies of photos with her in them, hanging up on the walls of his desolate two-story house, and front-and-centre of his dresser. But those were just still images. It wasn’t that he was forgetting what she sounded like, either, not exactly. It was ridiculously easy to find clips of her jumping off the ferris wheel. That just wasn’t her in the way he wanted to remember her.  
    Noah tossed his work uniform onto the ever-growing laundry pile in the corner of his bedroom. It was Friday, so he wouldn’t have to wash it immediately, but he would still probably get around to it sooner rather than later. Laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, that gave him something to do so that he could actually feel productive. For now, though, he was content to sit down on the living room couch with a beer and flip on the TV. When he flipped it on, it was turned to ABC News, showing footage of a convenience store break-in committed by a gang of teens with powers. Grimacing, Noah changed it to the sports channel even though his knowledge of sports more or less ended with “don’t make the football explode”. People with powers were the last thing he wanted to hear about. It was all anybody was talking about at his job ever since they’d gotten a new hire who could levitate. Just levitation, not even proper flight, and people were getting all excited about it as though that twenty-something temp would single-handedly end the world. Noah understood the sentiment, as it was one that he had held for many years, but now it just got on his nerves more than anything. A lot of things got on his nerves, really. The fact that his daughter was still dead, for one thing, and that her kids were off in college on the other side of the country more or less ignoring him, and the fact that the only friend of his who was still alive and who he currently knew the location was--  
    His cellphone buzzed and he picked it up to see he had gotten a text from Angela. Seeing the notification brought a smile to his face, but anxiety tugged at his gut as he unlocked his phone to read the message. Angela wasn’t the type to contact somebody just to check in on them. She would pretend that was what she was doing, but there was always a secret motive of some sort. Either that, or she was texting to warn him about something bad that was about to happen. Regardless, receiving a text from Angela was never a particularly good sign. Muting the TV, Noah swallowed back his apprehension and read the text.  
**Dreamed about you last night. Be careful.**  
    The tug of anxiety came back, sharper now. Noah rubbed his temples, trying to keep his breathing steady even as his heart sped up. A dream about him could mean a lot of things. It wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. It probably would be, but even so, bad futures could usually be prevented. It was fine, he told himself as he typed out a response.  
**What sort of dream?**  
**You were lying on the ground. Don’t know if dead or alive. Short blonde woman standing over you.**  
    Noah’s brow furrowed. A short blonde woman… that could be several people. A thought flickered through his head, the maddest and briefest dash of impossible hope, and he dismissed it with a shake of his head.  
**Any other details?**  
**No.**  
    Noah sighed, slumping down in his seat. On the muted television screen, images flickered by of men clad in sportswear chasing each other around a field. He changed the channel again, to what looked to be a nature documentary: a lion chasing down an antelope. He went to change the channel again, and then on second thought switched the TV off altogether.  
**Well, thanks for the warning, Angela. Talk to you soon.**  
**...We’ll see.**

* * *

 

    Micah didn't like lying to such a cute young woman, especially since he knew she had powers. She was on his side in the grand scheme of things, he knew, or at least they must have both wanted more or less the same thing: for people with powers to be treated as equals in society to those without. If he told her the real reason he was there, she wouldn't believe him.  
    It _was_ only a few weeks until Tracy's birthday; that much was true. However, she had never expressed much of an interest in video games. No interest at all, actually. And, well, Micah didn't exactly know where she was at the moment. And even if he had known where his aunt was, and she had been a gamer, any Gamestop in America would have sufficed. He had gotten on a plane and flown to Japan, and entered this shop specifically, for a reason.  
The shop owner--Otomo, presumably, considering the store’s name--looked to be the only one working there. That was understandable, seeing as it was a pretty small store. Still, he was sure she would appreciate a bit of help around the place, and that was what he was there to do (or rather, that was step one of what he was there to do).  
    "Say, Otomo-san, do you think I could get a part-time job at this store?" he asked as casually as possible. "I really like video games, so it seems like the kind of place I'd like to work."  
    She blinked, looking a bit taken aback. Her gaze flickered over to the ajar door to her backroom. Micah followed her gaze and saw what looked like an old arcade machine and a bunch of old gaming consoles, which he paid no mind. Whatever was in the shop didn't concern him. He was looking for a person, not a thing.  
    "Uh, sure," she said, flashing him a big grin that even Micah, who was far better at understanding machines than people, could tell wasn’t organic. "When would you want to start, er, and what kind of hours...?"  
    "Tell you what, I'll come back here tomorrow with my resume, and we can work something out," he said. "How does that sound?"  
    The shop owner narrowed her eyes and nibbled on her lip, seeming to think it over. She glanced back over at the backroom, then back at Micah, who made a mental note to make it clear that he didn't care about whatever secrets she may have been guarding in there (unless those secrets turned out to be important, of course, but he doubted it). Then her fake grin softened into something subtler, but which looked more genuine. It was kind of cute, and Micah coughed as he felt something stir in his chest.  
    "It sounds like a plan, mister… what's your name?" she asked.  
    "Micah," he told her. Then, realizing that it might not have been a good idea to give out his real full name: "Micah… Hawkins."  
She nodded and gave him a little bow. "Right. See you tomorrow, then."

* * *

 

    Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, two women sat together at a restaurant, eating breakfast. They had originally planned to go out the night before, but something had come up at the office, and Kimiko had been forced to work late that night. Now, between sips of black coffee, she made conversation with her date. They had met a couple days before at a gay bar, and she'd introduced herself as Ji Woo. Between her foreign name and her short-cropped, bleached-blonde hair with a streak of red, she had thoroughly caught Kimiko's eye. Whether or not she would catch her heart as well, that remained to be seen, but Kimiko was trying to be cautiously optimistic.  
    "So, you said your dad is Korean?"  
    Ji Woo nodded as she chewed a mouthful of toast.  
    "Yes, and my mom is Chinese," she said after swallowing down her toast and taking a sip of water. "They both went back home when they divorced, and I got bounced between them so much that I got used to traveling. This is one of my favourite countries to visit, you know."  
   "You must face a lot of discrimination here, though," Kimiko said. "Especially with being a lesbian on top of being a foreigner. How do you handle it?"  
    "Ah, I mostly just ignore it," Ji Woo said with a shrug. "It doesn't matter much what strangers think of me. I just wish I felt safer coming out to my family." She paused to take another sip of her water, keeping her eyes locked onto Kimiko as she did so. "Are you out to your family yet?"  
    Kimiko hesitated. She took a couple bites of her own toast and chewed them slowly while Ji Woo stared at her expectantly with a gaze that was almost unnervingly piercing. Was she out to her family? What a question. What family? For the record, her parents had never known, and she had only told Hiro after he had come out as bi to her. However, the key word there was had. She didn't want to tell this woman, who was still practically a stranger, that she was the last living member of the Nakamura family. It was hardly appropriate first date conversation, after all.  
Ji Woo must have eventually deduced from her extended silence that it wasn't an easy question for Kimiko to answer, because she cleared her throat and adjusted her posture before changing the topic to the weather. Before long, the conversation drifted from there to the topic of various places Ji Woo had traveled. Apparently she was a freelance photographer, and had been at it for quite a while.  
    "In 2004 and 2005 I spent some time in Central America," she said. "And in 2006 I went to the United States. That was when I took one of my favourite photos: a big firework in the sky over New York City!"  
    "That's funny," Kimiko mused. "My brother was in New York in 2006. I wonder if you ever ran into each other?"  
    "Probably not," Ji Woo said quickly. "It's a big city, after all. But, tell me, why was your brother there?"  
    "He…" Kimiko stirred her spoon around in her coffee and watched little ripples swirl around the surface of the dark liquid. "He traveled a lot too. It wasn't his job, he just… had an affinity for it."  
    "Oh, okay," said Ji Woo. If she had noticed the use of past tense, she didn't comment on it. "That's so funny, don't you think? Your brother travels, I travel, and you stay here working at your office."  
    Kimiko grimaced into her coffee cup. She took a gulp and forced her face into an amicable smile (friendly was a little more than she could manage, let alone flirtatious). Perhaps if her brother hadn't "traveled" so much, if he had been content to stay in Tokyo and work at Yamagato Industries instead of running off and being a hero, he would still be in her life… but she had no way of knowing that for certain. Hiro had always talked so much about destiny--maybe his fate had been inescapable. Either way, speculating about it now wouldn't do any good.  
    "Oh, yes, it's very funny," she said.  
    From there, the conversation continued to drift between various topics. Ji Woo definitely led a fascinating life, and Kimiko wished her the best, but once they were finished eating and had paid for their meal, they went their separate ways, and Kimiko didn't plan to see her again. It was just another first date that didn't pan out, which was just about the only kind Kimiko had these days. Outside the restaurant, she took her bicycle out from the bike rack and pedaled over to Yamagato. Maybe she would find the right woman for her one day, but until then, she had work to do.

* * *

 

    Wind whistled, low and sharp, through the graveyard, rustling the few leaves remaining on the surrounding trees. Most of the leaves were already on the ground, crunching under Mohinder's feet. His lab coat fluttered behind him as he walked. Naturally, it wasn't the sort of attire one would wear to such a place, but he had gotten over there as quickly as he could without having time to stop and change clothes. The cemetery was mostly empty apart from him, so there was nobody around to witness as he approached a gravestone toward the back of the cemetery adorned with a floral wreath. Etched into the top of the stone, slightly faded but still completely legible, was a name: Claire Bennet.  
    Claire Bennet herself, as it happened, was sitting cross-legged on the grass right next to her grave. She picked idly at a leaf from the wreath her father had laid there, twirling it between her fingers. She was dressed in a surprisingly casual manner: a paint-splattered gray tank top and what looked to be a pair of men's sweatpants. Not only were these clothes nowhere near her style, they didn’t entirely fit her; the straps of the top looked like they were digging into her shoulders a bit, and the pants hung loose and baggy around her ankles. Her hair was long and dyed black, and she was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. The only reason he knew it was her at first was because of the context. It had been her voice on his cellphone, after all. As he came to a stop and looked down at her, she looked up to meet his gaze, tipping up the brim of her cap. There were dark circles under her eyes, and dirt smeared on her face. A slow smile crept onto her face as she took him in.  
    "Hello, Miss Bennet," Mohinder said, raising an eyebrow. "You certainly seem to have made quite a comeback."  
    "From the grave to the stage," Claire muttered. "You're unnatural, babe."  
    Now that Mohinder could see her as she spoke, he noticed a strange twitch in her face when she opened her mouth. He was about to ask her why she was saying such confusing things. Then she laughed, in that way she did when she was trying to alleviate the bizarreness of the situation and she stood up, brushing dirt off her pants. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else, but then grimaced and closed it again. Glancing across the street to where Mohinder had parked his car, she grabbed his sleeve and motioned for him to follow her. He realized then that her strange speech patterns must have been due to fear that someone was observing them. And, sadly, those fears obviously weren't unfounded--the world had become marginally kinder to those with powers recently, but it still wasn't anywhere near an ideal level of acceptance. Violent acts against those with powers, while discouraged by the law, were sadly still quite common.  
    She led him across the street, and they climbed into his car. Once the doors were shut and locked, with all the windows rolled up, Mohinder turned to Claire, who was now fidgeting with a loose thread on the sleeve of her jacket.  
    "I can guarantee you, Miss Bennet, nobody is listening to us now," he told her. "You don't have to speak in riddles anymore. Now, tell me, what exactly happened to you?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cogs are in motion. Something is going to happen, or may have happened already. What these strange happenings may be, however, remains a mystery. Claire goes on a road trip. Peter goes shopping. Mohinder has some questions.

   Micah's job interview went fairly well, largely in thanks to him having practiced it several times beforehand. He bowed and shook hands with the shop owner, who told him that her name was Miko, and the deal was sealed. He was going to work from 8:30 am--the time the store opened--until noon, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Since it was currently Sunday, Micah had just enough time to border on spiraling into anxiety about how things would work out. When he got to the hotel where he was staying, he passed by a short-haired woman making her way down the halls. He waved at her, but she didn't even seem to notice him there. Shrugging, Micah made his way to his hotel room and stepped inside; as he did, his nose wrinkled at the slight rancid stench hanging in the air. The walls were painted gray (maybe some would have found that preferable to the paisley wallpaper of the hallway, but the gray was just so lifeless) and decorated with a couple blotchy stains of unknown origin. It wasn't exactly the hottest tourist destination in town, but he had to stay somewhere while he was in Tokyo, and this hotel was just about the only place he could afford.

   The next day, Micah started his new job. He got to the store a little early, just as Miko was getting there and tidying things up a bit. She welcomed him with a smile and a wave, and she led him around the different areas to show him where things went. That didn't take long, since it was a small shop and all, and once she was done with that she instructed Micah to wipe down the shelves. He got some paper towels and a bottle of cleaning fluid, and he complied. The cleaning fluid didn't smell great, but it was better than the smell in his hotel room. It didn't take him long to fall comfortably into the pattern of lifting the games off the shelves, squirting down some cleaner, tearing off a sheet or two of paper towel, wiping the shelf, setting the stack of games back down, and moving on to the next shelf. Once he was done that, Miko handed him a stack of assorted games and told him to put them away in their proper locations.

   While he was scanning the newly cleaned shelves for the sports games so he could put away a copy of  _ Super Bowl Heroes 2008 _ , the door chimed and a customer strolled in. The games momentarily forgotten, Micah straightened up and turned around to see who had come in. His shoulders slumped when he saw that the customer was a teenage boy wearing a school uniform. There wasn't anything wrong with that, obviously (the more business for Miko, the better) but it wasn't who he was looking for.

   "Hi, welcome to Otomo's Gaming Paradise!" Miko chirped as she popped up from behind the counter. "What are you looking for today?"

   "Um, I was wondering if you carry the Nintendo Switch?" the boy asked, a blush spreading over his cheeks. Micah couldn't blame him, but he hoped the customer knew that Miko's smile was the type she put on for every customer, not something specifically for him.

   Miko nodded. "They are a bit costly, but yes, we have Switches."

   The boy glanced over at Micah, who fake-coughed and turned back to the shelf of games. He spotted a row of sports games and tucked  _ Super Bowl Heroes 2008  _ in between  _ Ultimate Football 2004 _ and  _ Football Showdown 2011 _ . He then looked at the next game he was holding--an old PS2 Barbie game--and set about looking for a place to shelve it. The boy jerked his thumb at Micah.

   "Is that a new hire, Miko?" he asked.

   "Well, I'd prefer you address me a little more formally than that," she muttered. "But, yes, this is Micah-kun. It's his first day working here, so be nice!"

   "He's a foreigner," the boy said, as though that were some grand deduction that only the world's greatest detective would be capable of. "How come you hired him?"

   "Because I thought he would be a good worker," Miko said, maintaining her customer service smile with gritted teeth. "Now, do you want a Switch or not?"

   Once the customer had paid for his Switch and left, Micah put the last game away and wandered back over to Miko for his next assignment.

   "Thanks for sticking up for me, Otomo-san," he said.

   "Oh, it's no problem," Miko assured him. She smiled at him, and he couldn't tell whether it was another customer service smile or a genuine one, but either way his heart fluttered a tiny bit. "I get customers every day, but you're the first employee I've ever gotten."

   "Wow, seriously?" Micah asked, impressed even though he had figured as much. "How do you manage running this place on your own?"

   "Well, it's small," Miko mumbled, her voice dropping a couple decibels. "And it's not usually very busy. But anyway!" She clapped her hands together. "Your next task is to sort through the shelves and make sure nothing is misplaced!"

   "Alright, will do," Micah said.

   The customer he was looking for didn't come in that day, or on Wednesday, or on Friday either. That was fine, though. There was always next week, and then the week after that, for as long as Micah worked there. And, although it may have been a bit too early to say definitively, he was pretty sure working there was going to be awesome.

* * *

 

   Rain poured down in sheets outside Mohinder's car as they rumbled down the highway. His windshield wipers had to work overtime to keep things even remotely visible. Luckily, the further out of town they got, the fewer cars were on the road, so the risk of a collision was low. Less luckily, the gloomy gray sky was quickly darkening, and according to Mohinder's road map, they still had several miles to go before they could stop. They'd passed by a smattering of motels and drive-ins and gas stations already, but many of those places had signs hanging up outside saying "we don't serve evos". Mohinder had a few evo-friendly establishments marked on his map, though. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead as he drove, while Claire alternated between looking at his map and staring out the window at the downpour.

   "You don't suppose anybody will recognize you, do you?"

   Claire flinched as Mohinder suddenly spoke up after hours of vaguely uncomfortable silence. His eyes remained on the road, with his brow slightly furrowed and his mouth pulled into a frown. She drummed her fingers on the car door and tried to put together an appropriate response. There was a sentence she wanted to say: "Probably not, but even if they do, everyone knows I'm dead, so they won't believe it's really me." She wished she could just open her mouth and say that, say a proper sentence and not… not the things that wound up coming out of her mouth every time she spoke.

   What came out was, "And none of them would know that I was secretly myself."

   Mohinder's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "I see," he said flatly. "Well, in that case, I suppose we have nothing to worry about."

   Sighing, Claire slumped back in her seat and gazed out the front window.  She watched as raindrops splattered onto the glass, and then the wipers brushed them away as more fell, and then the wipers came back and got those as well, and so on and so on. It was an endless, infuriating cycle.

   At her sides, her hands balled into fists. Mohinder was right, she should have sought out somebody else, and she would have if the option had been available. The only thing was, she didn't have a cellphone. She'd had one before, of course, but not anymore. So after she had woken up in the middle of a field at the edge of town, her options had been pretty limited.

   The only payphone she'd been able to find was outside a library. After scrounging around for quarters on the sidewalk, she'd tried calling her dad only to have a complete stranger pick up and tell her she had the wrong number. She’d tried phoning her mom as well, but she didn't pick up. With only one quarter left, she had decided to stay at the library for a while, as it was one of the only places where she could hang around for as long as she wanted without money.

  The first thing she'd seen when she walked inside was a display of books involving people with powers. Most of the books had been fiction, but there had been a couple of non-fiction ones as well--an anthology of first-hand accounts of the day she had jumped, a biography about her life and family, and then one without her on the cover. She was immediately drawn to that one, because she was so damn sick of seeing that image of herself, from when she'd thought she had it all figured out. Where had jumping gotten her, or any of her friends, for that matter? Nothing good. The only non-fiction book that wasn't about Claire had a DNA symbol on the cover, and was titled  _ The Genome Decoded: What Gives Us Powers?  _ The name in the byline had instantly caught her eye: Mohinder Suresh.

   Written on the back of the book, along with a summary and some reviews, was Mohinder's phone number. He would hardly have been Claire's first choice (he  _ wasn't  _ her first choice, not by a long shot) but he was a friend of the family, and he was a scientist, so maybe he could figure out what had happened to her. She didn't have a library card either, so she couldn't check the book out, but she did give it a quick read-through before phoning Mohinder. Aside from her quickly cut off "hello" to what had used to be Noah's number, which had come out a little scratchy if for no other reason than the many years it had been since she had spoken, her phone call to Mohinder had been her first time talking since waking up. Unfortunately, she had quickly found upon talking to him that something was very wrong with her. And now… here she was, sitting in the passenger seat of Mohinder's car as they drove through the rain, unable to explain any of that to him.

   "You're stuck inside a pattern, you're stuck inside a loop," she muttered as she watched the ongoing battle between raindrops and windshield wipers. "And you're stuck inside a pattern, you're stuck inside a loop, and you're stuck inside a pattern, you're stuck inside a loop, and you're stuck inside a pattern, you're stuck…"

   She slammed her fist against the window, shaking off a couple raindrops. Now it was Mohinder's turn to flinch, but he didn't comment.

   "So take a hammer to it!"

   The only problem was, she had no idea how to take a hammer to her current predicament. All she could do was sit there and stew in frustration and confusion, and wait until they reached one of the hotels on Mohinder's map.

* * *

 

    Going into town was something Peter always looked forward to, even though it was only ever for a few hours at a time, and he had to be shapeshifted into somebody else the entire time. He loved Sylar, and he loved their cottage, and their lifestyle, and their cat. But Peter needed to talk to other people every once in a while, even just in passing, even while pretending to be somebody he wasn't. It wasn't nearly enough to make up for how much he missed his friends and family, how much his heart ached every time he thought about them, but it was better than nothing.

   Being able to buy newspapers and keep up with the times, at least a little bit, was nice too. They were a long way away from New York, or Odessa, or LA, or Tokyo, or anywhere else where any of Peter's friends lived, but even the Atikokan newspapers would keep him up to date on what was happening in the world at large. He wished he could keep up with the people he cared about as well--he had no idea where any of them were, or how they were doing, or if they were even alive. He had to take what he could get, though, and what he could get was the occasional update on politics, media, and popular opinion as expressed in the letters to the editor.

   That morning, after he and Sylar had fed themselves and the cat, they opened up the newspaper they had bought on their last excursion and picked out two random people from a real estate ad, who they then shapeshifted into. Then they went outside, making sure that Rolex was safely in the cottage and that she had enough water, and flew into town.

   Atikokan, Ontario was not a large town even compared to the nearby Thunder Bay. Compared to New York, it was practically a village. Compared to a little cottage in the forest, however, it seemed plenty big. Peter and Sylar set down about a quarter-mile outside of town so nobody would see them flying--many people wouldn't take that much issue with human flight nowadays, but opinions toward those with powers were still largely unkind, especially in small towns. After walking into town, they split up to do their separate shopping. Peter picked up a refill of testosterone from the pharmacy while Sylar set off to the pet store to get more wet food for Rolex. While he was at the pharmacy, he spotted the man he was disguised as out of the corner of his eye, and he got out of there in a hurry before an awkward run-in could occur. That had happened a few times before depending on what section of the newspaper they picked from, and while it had sent Peter into a panic the first couple times, he had more or less gotten used to it by now.

   From there, he headed over to the grocery store. They were still pretty well-stocked when it came to food, but he figured that it wouldn't hurt to have a few more cans of tomato sauce around the house, and maybe another bag of pasta. Besides, he always liked the cozy, carefree atmosphere of the grocery store. Maybe it was silly--Sylar definitely seemed to think so--but it was true. Looking around at the different kinds of food was fun, and the music playing over the speakers was a nice change from the fairly limited CD selection they had at the cottage (they had no speaker system, but they did have a portable stereo, even though they could rarely get a radio signal out there). There were enough people there to provide some stimulation to Peter's empathy without completely overwhelming it, all with a nice variety of feelings, usually none too strong or negative. It was a nice, calming place to be.

   While he was perusing the canned foods aisle, debating which brand of sauce to buy, somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

   "Excuse me, do you know where I could find whole-grain bagels?"

   "Yeah, the--" Peter's words died on his tongue as he turned around to see a woman with a startlingly familiar face looking back at him. Excitement blooming in his chest, he grinned and clapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, Tracy! God, it's been years, how have you been?"

   She leered at him, lip curling up, as though he was something on the bottom of her shoe. "Um, wrong person," she said.

   "...Niki?" Peter asked, tilting his head. He was under the impression that she was long dead, but people seemed to come back from the dead fairly often in his friend group.

   "Yeah, no, I’m definitely neither of those people," the woman said. "And, no offence, but who the hell are you?”

   Squinting, Peter took a closer look at the woman. She was the splitting image of Tracy, and by extension Niki, but there was one noticeable difference. Well, actually, there were a couple noticeable differences--she had her hair in a bob, and she was wearing an all-black, gothic outfit with dark purple lipstick and nail polish. That much could hypothetically have just been a disguise so that Tracy could be keep her identity a secret, though. The thing that really tipped Peter off to the fact that this was definitely a different woman was the birthmark in the approximate shape of the godsend kanji on her right cheek.

   "I, uh, I'm sorry about that, Ma'am," Peter stammered. "You just remind me of a couple people I know. What is your name, if I may ask?"

  The woman stared at him disdainfully. "I don't think that concerns you," she said, and as much as he would have liked to, Peter couldn't argue with that. Clearly this woman was quite content living her own life; she didn't need to know that she was part of a set of clones.

   Still, he kept thinking about the encounter throughout the rest of the day. He kept thinking, if only that  _ had _ been Tracy (or Niki, somehow miraculously back from the dead). If only he could just suddenly run into one of his friends on one of these trips into town. It would never happen, he knew, because nobody of note would ever come to Atikokan, Ontario. That was why Peter and Sylar went there to stock up on supplies instead of to Thunder Bay. Thunder Bay wasn't much either, but it was a place worth putting on a map (the murder capital of Canada, apparently, which made Peter wonder if his boyfriend had ever stopped by there in his serial killer days). Atikokan was the perfect place to hide, second only to the woods a few hundred miles outside of town. Nobody went there; that was the point. Until the day when people with powers were completely accepted by society, which he knew full well would probably never come, he would never be able to see his friends or family again.

   Peter's heart clenched, and tears welled up in his eyes. Setting down his grocery bags, he wiped his tears away without much avail. Here he was again, getting all sentimental, in the middle of the sidewalk where everybody could see him. God damn it, why was he so pathetic? Why couldn't he just suck it up and get used to it?

   "Peter?" a voice behind him asked. He turned around to see what looked like a random man, but he could instantly tell it was Sylar. "Are you okay?"

   Rubbing his eyes, Peter blinked up at his boyfriend. The person he'd chosen to masquerade as was considerably shorter than Sylar's this time around. The last time, it had been the other way around, and the time before that they'd been about the same height. Sylar tilted his head and reached up to brush away a teardrop from Peter's eye.

   "You were crying," he said softly--not quite a whisper, but quieter than his normal volume. "What happened?"

   "Oh, it was nothing, really," Peter told him. He tried to force his face into a smile for a moment, but then gave up on the effort and simply shook his head. "I saw someone at the store who looked like somebody we know."

   "What person?" Sylar asked, eyes widening slightly. "It didn't look like Nathan, did it?"

   "No, not Nathan," Peter said. "They looked like somebody else, but it… but it, it just got me thinking about how I don't know where anybody is, or if they're okay…" He trailed off, his gaze dropping. "I miss them."

   Biting his lip, Sylar placed his hand on Peter's shoulder and gave it a sort of awkward pat. He didn't say "it's okay" or assure Peter that everyone was fine, which was just as well. Since Peter was borrowing (permanently borrowing, really) Sylar's powers, which included a lie detector ability, those empty words of comfort would have been wasted on him. Sniffling, Peter brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes and picked his grocery bags back up. Sylar looped an arm around his waist and they walked down the sidewalk together until they were a little ways out of town, at which point they took to the air and flew back to their cottage.

* * *

 

   In a third-rate, run-down hotel in Tokyo, a middle-aged European man lounged on the sofa flipping through the limited selection of channels on the TV. Eventually he settled on a documentary about Woodstock. His long, matted brown hair fanned out over the back of the sofa behind him, and he scratched at his beard as he watched the grainy footage of hippies--his people, he'd always thought--living their lives and having themselves a good time. That kind of peaceful, carefree living was what Bruce O'Brien wished upon the entire world. Too bad that all this evo-related conflict was still going on.

   There was a rattling sound from outside the door to his hotel room, followed by a short string of curses and an exclamation of "I don't have my key!" Chuckling, Bruce hoisted himself up from the sofa and lumbered over to the door. He opened it, and Ji Woo stepped through, flashing him a strained smile as she walked inside.

   "Howdy, Woo-woo," he greeted her. She screwed up her face at the nickname, like she always did, but he paid it no mind. "How was the date?"

   "It was good," she said. "Kimiko seems really cool. She runs Yamagato Industries, you know."

   "...And?" Bruce prompted. "Did you learn anything else about her?"

   "Oh, all sorts of things," Ji Woo said.

   She walked over to the minifridge in the corner of the room, which only ever kept things lukewarm at best, and took out a beer. Bruce followed her over and grabbed his own beer, which he had drank half of the previous night and left sitting on the counter. He leaned against the counter, sipping his beer with a smile as the floodgates opened and Ji Woo gave him the scoop on Kimiko.

   "She was born and raised in this city, unlike me, obviously… she likes cooler weather, and autumn is her favourite season." She paused to screw the cap off her beer and take a sip before continuing, babbling away like an excited schoolgirl--those Asian chicks were cute like that, Bruce thought. "She used to think her biggest turn-off was boys spilling slushies on her, or just generally being boy-ish, but then she realized she was just a lesbian. Her favourite colour is blue, same as her brother--"

   "Brother, eh?" Bruce asked, eyebrows shooting up. "What all’d she say about him?"

   "Not much," Ji Woo admitted. "But anyway, she said she likes darker blues and her brother preferred neon."

   "Wait, wait," Bruce interjected. Ji Woo shot him a slightly annoyed look and took another drink of beer. "Did she say her brother  _ prefers  _ neon or  _ preferred  _ neon?"

   "Oh, right," she said. "Sorry, sorry, English is hard. She said it in present tense, I think."

   Bruce narrowed his eyes. "You  _ think _ ."

   "Yes. That's the right word, no?" she asked. Then, after stopping to take another sip of beer, she frowned. "You know what, Bruce, you don't get to criticize me for slipping up with English when you haven't even tried to learn Korean or Mandarin or any other language!"

   Bruce thought about shooting back some sort of retort, but decided against it. Clearly Ji Woo was just in one of her moods. She would be back to her usual chipper self before long (he made a mental note to remind her to ask Kimiko out again once she had calmed down). Grunting, he turned away from her and took a swig of beer, and then sat back down on the sofa to finish watching the Woodstock documentary.

   Miko looked over at the analog clock hung up on the wall. It was a gift from a distant relative who lived overseas--a novelty clock painted to look like a pokéball. The hour hand rested on the 12, and the minute hand hovered at the brink of joining it. Right below the clock, Micah lifted up a stack of old gaming magazines to dust the shelf beneath. Once he had wiped the surface clean and set the magazines back down, Miko came over to him and clapped him on the shoulder.

   "Okay, it's noon," she said. "Time for you to go home."

   "Alright," Micah said, reaching up to wipe a couple beads of sweat off his forehead. "See you tomorrow, Otomo-san." Then he paused, frowning. "Oh, wait, I guess I won't. See you Wednesday, I mean."

   Miko nodded. "See you then," she said. "And thank you for all the hard work."

   "Eh, it's no problem," Micah said with an amicable shrug. "It's just my job, right?"

   "Right." Miko tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Well, see you Wednesday, then!"

   They waved goodbye to each other through the window as he headed out the door and down the sidewalk. As he receded from view, Miko turned and headed over to sit behind the counter. There, she opened up the bento box she had brought for lunch and picked up an old gaming magazine to read while she ate.

   A few minutes later, when Miko was finished her lunch and halfway through reading a walkthrough of _Dark Souls_ , the doorbell chimed and the door swung open. Placing the magazine facedown on the counter, Miko straightened up and rattled off her customary greeting. The customer in question smiled as he walked in and nodded in her direction, but he didn't bother trying to make conversation with her.

   He was one of her more frequent customers, although he had yet to come by while Micah was present, but he never really interacted much with Miko, and she was perfectly fine with that. To be perfectly honest, he scared her a little. He'd come to her shop since it had opened, and he'd always seemed so lonely, like there was somebody who should have been there with him but never was. He had this perpetual worried look about him, too, which he apparently tried to compensate for by dressing like a cool guy. Today, he was wearing his hair in gelled spikes and donning a t-shirt with the name of a band on it. He headed straight for the clearance section, picked out a copy of  _ Pokémon Battle Revolution, _ and walked over to the counter.

   "I'd like to buy this, please," he said, laying the game down on the counter.

   "Sure thing, Nakamura-Masahashi-san," she said. The hyphenated surname was always a mouthful, but it brought the slightest hint of a smile to his serious face.

   ("How come you hyphenated your name?" she'd asked him once, when the curiosity had gotten the better of her. "Isn't that a rather American thing to do?"

   "Well, Hiro always did love doing things the American way," he'd said with a melancholy chuckle.

   "Who's Hiro?"

   She had noticed him fidgeting with the silver wedding band on his ring finger. He had met her gaze solemnly, and something in the back of Miko's mind had clicked into place.

   "He was my husband," the customer had replied.)

   Now, as she rang him up, he stared past her at the door to her backroom. It was properly shut this time around, so if he saw anything of interest, it was only in his mind's eye. He paid for the game, thanked her, and left.

* * *

 

   Five days into their little road trip to no place in particular, Claire and Mohinder got held up in traffic for five hours straight. Mohinder took the opportunity to make a second attempt at figuring out what had happened to Claire. It was a pretty futile effort, since Claire had no idea what had happened herself, and even if she had known she couldn't have communicated it effectively.

   "What's the last thing you remember  _ before _ you… woke up?" he asked. He put an odd, almost playful emphasis on "woke up", as though it was some hilarious in-joke that Claire had been dead for six years.

   The last thing Claire remembered was giving birth, although it definitely wasn't a memory she wanted to dwell on. The main thing that stuck in her mind was the deep, overwhelming pain--the first time she had felt it in years. She wondered if her children were alive, and if so, who had raised them. Hopefully not their biological father. He wasn't equipped to raise kids. Honestly, she never should have gotten with that jerk. If she hadn't gotten with him, if she hadn't gotten pregnant with his child, then she never would have died. Well, she probably would have died every now and then, but it would only last a few seconds. Dying for real? Losing her powers? That was awful! Even now that she was somehow alive again, Claire had no idea if her powers were back or not, and she sure as hell wasn't going to take the risk necessary to find out.

   What she said when she tried to talk about giving birth was, "Nine horrible months, then she is born, and into a world that doesn't want her."

   "I see," Mohinder hummed. He seemed to think it over for a minute. "So, giving birth to your twins, then?"

   She nodded. Questions burned at the back of her throat--if Mohinder knew what had happened to those children, if he had ever met them, and if so, what they were like. She wanted to ask him those questions, and so many more. How was her dad holding up? What about her mom? And Lyle? How about Peter, was he okay? There were so many people whose fates she didn't know, so many worries plaguing her mind, but she couldn't find the words to express them.

   "And after that?" Mohinder prompted; Claire could picture him scribbling down mental notes on a metaphysical clipboard.

   For a moment, something flashed in her mind's eye, like a memory fighting to surface. A wave of dizziness swept over her, and she shook her head, blinking. The gap between passing out and waking up remained as empty as ever. The one thing about waking up, though, was that it very much  _ had  _ felt like waking up from a long sleep in a way that "waking up" from being dead usually didn't. Maybe that had just been because of how long it had been, or the method of her coming back.

   "I remember waking up with my mind repaired… A-ok," she said.

   That was close enough to what she meant, at least, apart from the word "mind". That part of her, if her inability to speak properly was anything to go by, was the part of her that had been the most shoddily repaired. She tried to find other words to describe the experience, but even if her speech pathways had been functioning normally, there wouldn't have been much to say. It had just felt like waking up from a long sleep, only naked and covered in dirt, and out in the middle of a field somewhere. A towel and a fresh pair of clothes had been lying nearby, and although she hadn’t noticed at first, catching her reflection in a puddle had revealed that her hair was dyed black. Whoever had brought her back must have planned the operation well in advance. ( _ It's like we know what we're doing or something, _ supplied a voice in her head. She had no idea what that quote was from, or what any of the stuff that came out of her mouth was from.)

   "Right, so… you just died--permanently, up until last week--and then came back," Mohinder mused. "And now you're struggling with… with this..."

   "Word disassociation," Claire supplied.

   Mohinder nodded, looking just as pleasantly surprised as she felt about the appropriate term. She couldn't say for sure if she was getting better at coming up with phrases from the seemingly arbitrary selection she had to work with, but there was the occasional moment where something came out sounding like she was just a normal person saying a normal thing.

   "I wonder if these things are connected in any way," he said.

   Claire shrugged. "Strange things happen for no reason, that's all I know."

   By the time the sun went down that night, they had yet to make it to the next hotel marked on Mohinder's map. They wound up getting fast food from a drive-through (Mohinder borrowed Claire's baseball cap to hide his face while ordering) and then pulling over to the side of the road and sleeping in the car. Mohinder was out like a light long before Claire; she figured he needed some extra rest because he was tired from driving. While he was sleeping, she took another look at his map, tracking the progress they had made so far. They'd gone from Odessa, Texas up toward New Mexico, and judging by the line Mohinder had drawn on the map, they were en route to California. She wished they could have stayed in Odessa so she could see her dad, but she could understand why Mohinder wasn’t keen on staying in Texas. It generally wasn’t a very good place for an Indian man and a bisexual woman, let alone when both of them were also evos. Plus, it would probably help for Claire not to be in the same location as her own grave.

   What they would do once they reached their destination, if they even had a solid destination, Claire wasn’t sure if even Mohinder had planned out. For now, it was best to just try to get a good night's sleep. She folded up the map, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes.

* * *

 

   Something fishy was going on in Atikokan. At first Barbara had thought she was just imagining it when she saw two of the same person at the pet store a couple years ago. Then, one year ago, she had spotted her next-door neighbours walking down the street only to have them not recognize her. Finally, four days ago, some man she didn't even know had called her by two different names, neither of them her own. Barbara wasn't an idiot, though. She knew the significance of those names. Every time she uploaded a photo of herself to Facebook, it asked if she wanted to tag either Niki Sanders or Tracy Strauss. So she'd looked those names up, and as it turned out, both of them were evos. And if that stranger at the grocery store was familiar with them, chances were he was an evo too.

   Those damn evos. They were everywhere nowadays, it seemed. At one point, folks had been vigilant about not letting those bastardizations of humanity infiltrate society. But as time went on, more and more people were slipping. She'd even seen two kids playing outside the local elementary school levitating a ball back and forth. The way she saw it, somebody had to put their foot down and say, no, you freaks can't call yourselves Atikokan citizens.

   So imagine Barbara's surprise when she ran into the man from the grocery store at the dollar store a few days later. Except… he wasn't actually the same man; she could tell that much almost immediately. He carried himself differently, with a more slouched-over posture, and made sure his hair was pushed back from his face at all times.  He paid her no mind as they stood next to each other in the checkout line, and he certainly didn't address her by the wrong name.

   While he was bagging his purchases, she struck up a conversation with him about the man with his face she'd seen a few days back. As it turned out, on that very same day, Mr. Jenkins (that was his name, so she learned) had spotted a man in the pharmacy who looked exactly like him.

   "Thought I was going insane," he confided. "But if we both saw a man with my face on the same day...  huh. You reckon we got an evo on our hands? Shapeshifter, maybe?"

   Barbara nodded. "That's the only thing it can be," she said. "So here's what I think. Those evos, they're always looking out for their own kind. That's how we'll draw 'em out next time they come around."

   "Now, I didn't say nothing 'bout drawing them out," Jenkins said, his eyebrows shooting up. "And how can you predict when they'll be back in town?"

   "I can't," she admitted. "But the next time I see a mysterious doppelganger, or anyone who just doesn't seem right… well." She laughed. "I'll see to it that Atikokan stays evo-free in the future."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't lookng so good, and it seems as though they're only going to get worse. Angela makes a phone call. Peter does a cat rescue. Micah makes a costly purchase.

_ A gunshot rang out, echoing down an impossibly long hallway--the type that could only exist in a nightmare. It was followed by another gunshot, then another and another, only stopping with the distinctive click of a gun that was out of ammo. Blood trickled down the hallway like a river, pooling around Angela’s feet as she stood, seemingly rooted to the ground. She squinted, trying to see who had shot who, but they were too far down the hall; she could only see a vague blur in the distance. _

_     “Hello?” she called out. She knew this was a dream, so whatever was happening here couldn’t hurt her. She tried to take a step forward, but some unseen force held her back. “Who’s there? What’s going on?” _

_     There was no response. She looked around, taking in her surroundings so that she would recognize it if she ever came there in the waking world. The tiled floor beneath her feet was too blood-soaked for her to determine the colour, but the wallpaper was refreshingly distinctive--that was to say, absolutely hideous. It was a beige and green paisley pattern, cracked and peeling in several places. That wallpaper was the last thing Angela saw before something sharp connected with her neck and the world went black. _

    Angela woke up, eyes snapping open, and immediately reached to her bedside table for her cellphone. She'd walked that hallway in her dreams before, she realized. It was where she had seen Noah lying on the floor, with that woman standing over him. Her first instinct was to call Peter, but no, she couldn't do that. He was… somewhere, she wasn't entirely sure exactly where. Somewhere in Canada, she knew, and probably still with Sylar, but even she didn't know their exact location. They cropped up in her dreams sometimes, prophetic and non-prophetic alike. In the former, the images she got of them were vague, and it was probably better that way. If anyone, anyone at all, knew Peter's location, then Peter was at risk of being tracked down. She was much less concerned about Sylar, but she also knew her son was rather fond of that man, so she supposed it was good that he was in hiding as well.

   There was only one person she could really talk to about her dreams. Sitting up, she flicked the lamp on as she typed out a text message to Noah:  _ Had another dream. Gunshots in hallway & a lot of blood.  _ Not waiting for a response, she laid back down and tried to get back to sleep. However, just as she was drifting back off, her ringtone began to play. Sighing, she picked her phone back up took the call without getting out of bed. Before she could even say hello, Noah's urgent voice filled her ear.

    "Tell me everything that happened," he said. "What hallway? Who got shot? Was I there again?"

    Grimacing, Angela held her phone at arm's length so Noah wouldn't be shouting right in her ear. "I couldn't see who was there this time," she told him. "Somebody fired off a whole round of bullets, and then something hit my neck--maybe a bullet, maybe a sword, maybe something else altogether."

    She heard Noah mutter something under his breath. Turning over onto her side, Angela checked the time on her alarm clock; it was 3:02 AM. She felt a twinge of concern for her old friend as he grumbled to himself on the other end of the line. What in god's name had Noah been doing up at that time of night?

    When Noah spoke up again, the exhaustion in his voice was painfully palpable.

    "Whatever is going to happen, Angela, we won't be able to stop it," he said. "You, me, maybe Suresh if we can get in touch with him… it's not going to be enough."

    Angela breathed out a soft sigh. Part of her wished that Noah was there in person so she could… not hug him, that would be much too forward, but perhaps give him an affirming pat on the back. Two worrisome dreams within a few days of each other did seem to spell out some future disaster, but time was malleable; she didn't think anyone aside from perhaps a time-traveller could really understand just how malleable. She had dreams almost every other night that could have been prophetic, but they rarely wound up coming true. That was part of the reason she rarely told people about them in the first place. It was only when she dreamed about the same thing over and over again that it became a serious threat.

    "Nobody is expecting us to save the world, Noah," she assured him. "Certainly not at this age. Now, at the risk of sounding like your mother--"

    "Well, I guess it's kind of fitting, since your granddaughter is my daughter," he chuckled dryly. Then his voice flattened as he corrected himself. "Was. Was my daughter."

    "Mm." Lips pressing into a thin line, Angela flicked her bedside lamp back off and tried not to think about the people who were no longer in their lives. "As I was saying, you should really be in bed."

    "Yeah, you, uh," Noah said. "You got me there. Goodnight, Angela."

    "Goodnight."

* * *

 

    A light breeze blew through the forest, ruffling Peter's hair as he trekked along beneath rows of birch and maple trees. It was a slightly cooler day than the last few, with a smattering of gray clouds covering the sky, and a slight damp chill hung in the air. He wouldn't have been surprised if it rained later. Shivering, he ran his hands up and down his arms and tried to pick up the pace a little.

    "Rolex," he called. "Where are you, girl? Come here."

    He made some kissy noises, hoping to lure the cat out from wherever she'd scampered off to. All the while, he silently berated himself for leaving the door open. That cat could just move so fast; she'd been well out the door by the time Sylar had yelled "watch the cat!" He would have been impressed if he wasn't so worried. Rolex, like any cat with a responsible owner, was strictly an indoor cat. Outside the safety of the cottage, she and the local wildlife both posed a serious danger to each other. With a twinge of anxiety, Peter surveyed the thick deciduous forest for a flash of black fur, but there were none to be found.

    Just then, an ear-splitting yowl split the air, followed by some snarling. Heart clenching, Peter ran to the source of the sound. He came to a small clearing, where Rolex stood with her back arched and her teeth bared, hissing. There was a deep gash across her flank. Across from her stood a fox with a scratch over one eye. The fox snarled and lunged at Rolex, aiming its fangs at her throat.

    Something took hold of Peter in that moment--something that was almost second nature, but which he hadn't acted on in a long time. He extended his hand and the fox went flying backwards, crashing through the underbrush with a startled whine. It came to a skidding stop several feet away and ran off into the bushes.

    As the fox ran away, Rolex's fur flattened out. She let out a pained hiss and collapsed onto her side. Peter's attention instantly snapped back to her, and he ran over and scooped her up, murmuring comforting baby-talk to her as he checked out her injury. It looked like she was losing a lot of blood. Peter tore off a strip of his shirt and wrapped it around the open wound, and put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Rolex stirred in his arms, whimpering. A lump rose in Peter's throat, and he took in a shaky breath, hugging the wounded cat close to his chest.  _ It's all my fault, _ he thought.  _ If I hadn't left the door open, none of this would have happened. _

    He brought Rolex back to the cottage and laid her down on the blanket she liked to sleep on. Her breathing was steady, but worryingly slow and shallow. At least the bleeding had stopped, but that was still a very nasty wound. It would need to be cleaned and then stitched up, and he knew full well they didn't have the necessary supplies at the cottage. He would have to go back into town and take her to the vet. If only he had access to teleportation, he could get her there instantly--or better yet, the ability to heal others, then he wouldn't have to go to the vet in the first place--but he was stuck with Sylar's selection of abilities, none of which could help an injured cat.

    Sylar was still out in the woods looking for Rolex. Peter scribbled down a note for him:  _ "found Rolex fighting a fox. She got hurt so I'm taking her to vet."  _ He then bundled Rolex up in her blanket and flew off back to Atikokan, praying that he wouldn't be too late.

* * *

 

    At that very moment, a small creek trickled through another part of that very same forest. It meandered between thickets of raspberries and groves of trees, spilling over the pine needles and birch and maple leaves that coated the forest floor. It picked up the occasional floating leaf as it went along, but didn't encourage such things to stick around for long. The creek was a solitary thing. It flowed, long and winding, down a hill with a decline so gradual that you would only notice it while walking up it rather than down. From there it widened out, gradual as the slope of the hill, until it flowed into Lake Ghiacciato.

    Some of the people who worked at Ghiacciato Campground didn't like the things campers said about the lake. They said it would drive away business if people went around saying the water was haunted. Others believed every word of it. As for the campers themselves, they knew it better than anyone. Any person with a particularly low opinion on evos who was particularly vocal about said opinion was better off not going swimming. The lifeguards who pulled the half-drowned bigots from the lake didn't feel a pair of hands grabbing them and dragging them under, or hear a woman's voice whispering in their ear, and so they saw no reason to believe the rescued victims. They also didn't believe that there was any reason for the lake's frequent and sudden drops in temperature. It was just the weather, they said. Even when it made no sense to blame it on the weather, that was what they did, because otherwise they would have to confront the possibility that there really was something in the water.

    People who did believe in that sort of thing eventually came to a consensus. At some point in the perhaps not-so-distant past, a woman with powers had drowned in Lake Ghiacciato. It had not been an accidental death, but rather an act of anti-evo violence. Now her restless spirit resided in the lake, seeking revenge.

    Neither of these claims--that the lake was completely normal, or that its abnormality was caused by ghosts--was entirely accurate. There was only one person at the lake who knew the truth: park ranger Jeff Woodsman. However, his wife had made him swear to never speak of it to anyone, under any circumstances. That was why he always came up with some bullshit excuse as to why he couldn't go in the water. He knew that if he ever stepped foot in Lake Ghiacciato, he would freeze or drown or both. He knew that Tracy would kill him for what he and his wife had done to her.

* * *

 

    Noah checked his answering machine for the fourth time in as many days before he left for work on the morning after his chat with Angela. At this point he didn't really expect there to be any new messages, but there was no harm in checking. He just tried not to get his hopes up.  _ Who knows _ , he thought sardonically as he nudged the machine with his toe,  _ maybe it's the short blonde woman who's apparently going to kill me calling in advance to warn me. _

    "Monday. October. Second. 2019," the machine droned in its robotic monotone. It sounded exhausted, like it was getting tired of Noah pestering it for new messages that just weren't there. "Three messages."

    Noah paused in the middle of buttoning up his purple work shirt.  _ Three?  _ He only had two messages on his machine. For the first time in a long time, excitement sparked in his chest. Finally, somebody had taken the time to call him.

    "To play messages, press one," the machine instructed. "To delete messages, pr--"

    It cut off with a beep as Noah crouched down and pressed the "1" button. He skipped through the two older messages to the new one, and as soon as it began to play, a smile crept onto his face.

    "Hey, Noah," Malina's recorded voice greeted him. "Sorry I haven't been keeping in touch with you much. My classes this year are way harder than I thought, and I've been totally swamped! I've finally got a bit of free time, though, so feel free to call me back. Bye!"

    Noah wasted no time in taking her up on her offer. The phone rang twice before Malina picked up, sounding a little more tired than in the recording but still pleased to hear from him.

    "Hi, Noah. How are things going?"

    "Oh, they're going," he replied. "How about you and Tommy? Is your last year of college treating you well?"

    "Well, like I said in my message, it's really hard, but--" Malina broke off so suddenly that for a moment Noah thought he'd lost his connection. "...I'm sorry, did you say me and Tommy?"

    "Yes, of course," Noah said, his brow furrowing as he rummaged in his dresser for a belt. "How is he? You guys haven't been fighting or anything, have you?"

    There was a pause. Malina took in a long breath, resulting in a soft crackle over the phone line. Noah did up his belt and slipped on his business shoes, keeping the phone lodged between his ear and shoulder, and waited for her to say something. Anxiety wormed in his gut as the silence dragged out. Why wasn't she answering? She would tell him if something had happened to her brother, wouldn't she? Of course she would. What was she so confused about?

    When Malina finally spoke up again, she spoke quietly, like someone having been called on in class without knowing the answer.

    "Who?"

    Noah's stomach sank and a cold wave of dread settled over him. His mind flashed to an old familiar scene of his former colleague's hand reaching out for someone, extracting any memories that would be dangerous or inconvenient if kept. Grip tightening around the phone, he swallowed back his building panic with gritted teeth. She was playing a trick on him, he told himself, although he didn't believe himself for a minute.

    "Your brother," he prompted her. "Tommy, your twin brother."

    "What are you talking about?!" Malina demanded. Her voice was sharp, but with a distinctive wave of fear to it; it was obvious she was just as disoriented as Noah. "What brother, Noah? I don't have a brother!"

_ You do, _ he wanted to tell her.  _ You do, and something has happened to you to make you forget him--and if somebody made you forget Tommy, then something must have happened to him as well _ . Noah didn't say that to her, though. It would just get her more worked up, and that was the last thing he needed.

    "...Right, of course not," Noah said, faking a laugh as best he could. "I was just testing you, you know, keeping you on your toes. You never know when someone might try to impersonate me."

    "Um… odd test, but okay?" Malina muttered. "Anyway, you sound like you're in a hurry, so… talk to you later. Bye."

    She hung up. The click echoed in Noah's ear as he stood, staring blankly at his bedroom wall. Her voice replayed over and over in his mind: the sheer lack of recognition when he mentioned Tommy; the bewildered  _ "who?" _ of a person who didn't remember their own twin. As Noah bent down to place the phone back on its hook, his panic shifted gears, and an old feeling came rushing back to him. Something had happened to his grandkids, and he was going to find out what it was, and when he found out?

    By god, he was going to make the culprit pay.

* * *

 

    "I dunno, Bruce, I just don't think she likes me very much," Ji Woo muttered as her phone buzzed a tenth time, then went to a recording of Kimiko telling her to leave a message. "This is my eighth time calling her, and she still hasn't called me back, or even texted."

    From his position on the couch, Bruce didn't even look up at her. He grabbed a handful of potato chips and stuffed them into his mouth as he replied.

    "Just keep calling," he said. "You call a woman enough times, you'll wear her down eventually."

    Ji Woo rolled her eyes and took a sip of what she was pretty sure was the last bottle of beer. They would have to restock their minifridge soon, because being around Bruce was an impossible task when sober. If just wearing Kimiko down was an option, she would have already done it by that point. And, truth be told, Ji Woo really did like Kimiko from what little she'd seen of her--so much so that, for a moment, she'd gotten so caught up in the euphoria of their date that she'd forgotten why she was trying to get close to Kimiko in the first place.

    "Speaking as a woman, that strategy doesn't work," she said. "Why don't we just accept that Kimiko isn't going to work out and move onto something else?"

    "Listen, Woo-woo, Kimiko is our best bet," Bruce told her, speaking slowly, as though he were speaking to a child. He still refused to peel his eyes off the stupid soap opera he was watching. "I know she wasn't always very close to our guy, but it's either her or a guy who's rumoured to be dead. Get the picture?"

_ I get the picture that you're an idiot _ , Ji Woo thought. She had half a mind to take her beer bottle, once she'd finished it, and smash it over his big ugly head. His skull was so thick, she doubted he'd even feel it. The only thing that kept her from properly acting out on these violent urges was the very simple fact that she needed Bruce on her side. Without him around, there was no way she'd get away with smashing beer bottles over anyone's head. With him, it was no problem. Not that smashing beer bottles over people's heads was Ji Woo's typical modus operandi. As much as she loved to punch a bastard in the face every now and then, she was five foot nothing and weighed barely a hundred pounds. It wasn't that she  _ preferred  _ a subtle approach so much as that a direct approach would usually end in her getting beat up.

    She took a long swig of her beer, tipping it backwards to drain the last few drops into her mouth. Once she was done, she licked her lips and set the bottle aside, then grabbed a twenty-dollar bill off the counter and stuck it in the back pocket of her jeans.

    "Okay, Bruce, I'll keep trying with Kimiko," she said. "In the meantime, I'm going to buy some more beer. See ya."

    On her way to the liquor store, Ji Woo came across a dead dog lying on the side of the road. She kicked it out of the way, and as her foot connected with its insect-riddled flesh, its eyes snapped open. She carried on without bothering to look behind her as the dog got to its feet, renewed breath flowing through its lungs. She'd seen it countless times already; the novelty had thoroughly worn off at this point. Still, she couldn't help but smile when she heard the dog bark with what, at the risk of anthropomorphizing, sounded like gratitude.  _ Damn right, you'd better be grateful _ , she thought.  _ And who said I never do anything nice? _

* * *

 

    Two weeks into working at Otomo's Gaming Paradise, Micah passed by a couple of kids buying a drink from a vending machine on the street while he was walking home (read: back to the hotel). He'd never paid any mind to the vending machine before--in fact, he had barely even noticed it. Now, as the kids walked away holding sodas, Micah decided on a whim to go over and check it out. The machine had a pretty good selection: various flavours of juice, pop, and milk, including…

    "Hey," Micah said aloud as he peered through the glass of the vending machine. "Strawberry milk!"

    Micah had always wanted to try strawberry milk. It was something he'd seen in anime a couple times, and he thought it looked pretty good. He'd tried making his own once, but when he'd dumped a small carton of milk and a couple of strawberries into the blender and told it to make him some strawberry milk, the blender hadn't understood his command. Apparently that wasn't how to make it, and since he had no idea how else to acquire strawberry milk, he'd more or less given up. Soon enough, Micah had had much bigger things to worry about. Seeing the little boxes of the stuff inside the vending machine, a little spark lit back up inside his brain. It was silly, but… why not?

    Micah reached into his pocket and felt around for spare change. His hand came away empty.  _ Damn. _ Licking his lips, he looked back up at the vending machine, taunting him with its display of drinks. If he wanted, it would be easy to make the machine give him the milk, no money required. Sure, it was probably technically illegal, but it was just a vending machine. He took a quick glance around to make sure nobody was watching. The streets were virtually empty aside from a cluster of school kids who were paying no attention to him, a woman who appeared to be completely engrossed in a phone call, and two men who looked to be having an argument which they were totally wrapped up in.

    Micah smiled and turned back to the vending machine. Pressing a hand against the glass, he mentally reached out to the machine, sending a message to its inner workings. It hummed in obedience, and a carton of strawberry milk dropped down for him to pick up. He thanked the machine as he bent down to grab his milk. Keeping his gaze held high so as not to look suspicious, he opened the carton and took a sip.

    It was… kind of disappointing, actually. It was sweet, certainly, maybe a little too sweet. The strawberry taste was there for sure, but it blended with the milk part in a way that wasn't really to Micah's taste. Shoulders slumping, Micah took another sip anyway, because he'd risked his safety for this milk and he was going to drink it even though his taste buds weren't a big fan. Maybe he would come around to it if he drank enough.

    As he was sipping from the carton, something suddenly slammed into him. Milk sloshing into his face, Micah sputtered and turned to glare at the person who'd shoved him. The men he'd seen having an argument leered back at him, and this time they seemed to be in perfect agreement.

    "Yo, foreigner, I don't think I saw you pay for that drink," the man on the left said. He was tall and muscular, with hair that was styled into a pompadour. "How'd you get it, eh? Got some kind of power, maybe?"

    Micah narrowed his eyes and stood his ground. Although the taller man came up to just over his head, the man on the right was a few inches shorter than him. He wasn't going to be intimidated by these guys, not when all he'd done was get a stupid drink that didn't even taste that good.

    "Can you prove that's what I did?" he challenged.

    "I know what I saw, evo," the man on the left snarled. He took a step forward; his companion hung back behind him with his hands behind his back. "You've got some kind of power, and you used it to rob the machine! And now…" He tightened his hands into fists. "You're gonna pay for it!"

    He raised his hand and took a swing at Micah, who instinctively ducked. Somewhere down the road, a motorcycle roared to life. The sound distracted Micah for just a split-second--just long enough for his attacker to land a punch, right in his gut. Micah toppled backwards, the rest of the milk spilling out of his carton. Thinking fast, he flung the empty carton at his attacker, who simply batted it aside. The man on the right stepped forward, something gleaming in his hand. Heart speeding up, Micah glanced back and forth between the two men as they closed in on him. He scrambled to his feet and took off running down the sidewalk.

    Unfortunately, he didn't get very far. There was a sharp tug on the back of his collar and he was jerked backward, letting out a yelp. The shorter man sneered at him and thrust a knife into Micah's shoulder. Screaming as pain shot through him, Micah kicked at the man, who dropped him with a hiss. The knife felt even worse sliding out of him than going in. The more muscular man grabbed him around the neck and slammed him against a wall. Laughing, the man tossed him on the ground and kicked him in the side while his companion lunged down at him, knife glinting in his grasp.

    The distant sound of a motorcycle gradually picked up, as though it were getting closer. Head spinning, Micah reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone. He gave it a command to send out a message to any nearby people with powers telling them that he was in trouble just as a boot connected with his back. He flopped onto the pavement, phone skittering out of his hand, and one of the men (he wasn't sure which) crushed it under their boot. A sharp pain shot through his leg, then his side, as the knife found its mark twice. He coughed and wiped away a smear of blood from his lips. The sound of the motorcycle grew louder, and there was yelling, and suddenly the weight vanished from his back.

    Stunned and weakened, Micah lay on the pavement, vision tinged red and blurring in and out of focus. The last thing he saw before blacking out was a brilliant flash of crimson filling the air, like some sort of beam, or maybe a bolt of lightning.

* * *

 

    Kimiko's phone buzzed in her pocket, for the third time in a single business meeting. Whoever was trying to contact her must have been very persistent, and she had a pretty good guess as to who it was. Ji Woo had been calling and texting her constantly for the past week. That woman just couldn't seem to take the hint that Kimiko wasn't interested in entering a relationship. Ignoring her phone, she tapped the graph on the smartboard screen to draw attention to the projected discrepancy in finances.

    "See, if we cut funding to advertising, we can make better products," she said. "In that case, our products can stand on their own merits, so we can afford less advertising."

    Somebody in the back of the room raised their hand and then spoke up without waiting to be called on.

    "But if we can't get people to buy our products, we won't make any money. We can't waste our resources on that."

    "Yes, but as you can see here…" Kimiko moved forward to the next slide and motioned to a bar graph that showed how each department would be affected by cost cuts. "We won't have to get rid of advertising completely. Simple advertisements can be more effective at selling products if we actually have impressive features."

    Her phone buzzed again, and she reached into her pocket and turned it off. Even if it was somebody other than Ji Woo, it could wait until after the meeting. There wasn't really anyone else she could think of that it could be, anyway, aside from perhaps a very persistent wrong number. She concluded her PowerPoint and wrapped up the meeting with as much gravitas as she could salvage from her colleagues' constant criticisms.

    Later that evening, once she was back in her apartment, Kimiko checked her phone to see who had been calling her. Her heart almost stopped when she saw the caller ID, and she swore under her breath. If she had known who was calling, she would have answered; she just hadn't expected to hear from him again so soon… For a moment, hope bloomed in Kimiko's chest. Maybe her brother-in-law was finally warming back up to her. But then again, it could just as easily have been that he had gotten himself back into trouble.

   After a moment’s hesitation, Kimiko tapped on the "missed calls" notification and selected the "phone" option. The phone only buzzed once before it was answered, and the familiar voice of the Nakamura siblings' childhood friend said, "Hello?"

    "What were you calling me about?" Kimiko asked. She would be lying if she said hearing from Ando didn't spark any emotion in her, but there wasn't time to dwell on it. He had to have called for a reason other than for nostalgia's sake. "Did something happen? Are you okay?"

    "What, can't a guy just want to catch up every now and then?" Ando muttered. Then he sighed, and in the background, Kimiko heard the low rabble of other people around him having their own conversations. "No, I'm fine, but I saved this kid who was getting beat up, and I got thrown in jail for it. Come bail me out, will you?"

    Grimacing, Kimiko massaged her temples. "Again, Ando? Really?" she asked. "Why do you keep doing these things?"

    "Because it's what Hiro would want."

    There was a sharpness in his voice that made Kimiko flinch. Now she remembered why they didn't talk very much--every time they did, he would take that tone with her every time she tried to be reasonable, be responsible. It was the same tone he'd taken six years ago when she'd had the  _ audacity _ to suggest that maybe, just maybe, Hiro wasn't coming back this time. It was blunt of her to say it, of course it was, but it was the reality he had needed to face. And when that American boy, Tommy, had shown up at his door and told him Hiro's fate, Ando had taken that tone with Kimiko again, as though it were somehow all her fault that Hiro had gone off to the past.  _ It's what Hiro would want _ , as though she didn't know her brother just as well as he did, as though she hadn't listened to him prattling on about superheroes and whatnot when they were growing up. How dare he speak to her that way?

    "You don't know what Hiro would want," Kimiko snapped. "He's dead! But  _ I'm  _ alive, and  _ I  _ want you to call off your stupid vigilante act before you get yourself killed too."

    "Actually, I do know what he'd want," Ando retorted. "He'd want me to be like him--a hero. That's what I'm doing, Kimiko, that's all I've been doing! Even if I die, it'll be for the greater good."

    "But I don't want you to die," she said, and she meant it. As much as he could make her blood boil at times like these, Ando still meant a lot to her. They had grown up together just as much as either of them had grown up with Hiro. "My whole family has died, Ando. You're all I have left. Please," she added, a slight waver creeping into her voice. "Look after yourself."

    There was a pause, and in the background, Kimiko heard someone (presumably a prison guard) say "two more minutes." When Ando spoke up again, the anger was gone from his voice. He just sounded tired and sad, the same way Kimiko always felt when she thought about the way things used to be. (They'd always been a set of three growing up, more so when Kimiko and Ando had pretended to date so their families wouldn't know that both of them were gay, but then less and less so when Ando had gone off with Hiro on those crazy quests, leaving Kimiko to cover for them. Even as she had grown apart from her brother and taken on the role of third wheel, all three of them had been part of the same set. Now that it was down to just her and Ando, the pieces didn't fit together so well.)

    "You're right," Ando said. "I shouldn't put myself at risk. I don't--it's not like I want to die, really, I don't. I just want to live like Hiro did."

    "I know," she sighed. "And, Ando, I think Hiro would be very proud of you. He… he loved you lot, you know."

    "He loved you, too," Ando told her. "Maybe not as much as some siblings do, but still. You didn't mean nothing to him. And you don't mean nothing to me, either."

    Despite herself, Kimiko almost smiled at that. "Well, that's a refreshing thing to hear from an in-law," she said. "See you at the prison."

    "Yup," Ando said with a sort of sigh-laugh. "See you there."

* * *

 

    Peter set down right in front of the Atikokan Animal Hospital, Rolex still clutched in his arms. Flying in may have drawn a bit of attention, but walking even part of the way would have cost him time that he could tell Rolex didn't have. He marched inside and right up to the receptionist's desk without checking to gage the reactions of the people around him. The receptionist seemed rather started by his abrupt entry, but she welcomed him in and rang up a veterinarian who she assured Peter would be with him in a minute.

    Peter placed around the waiting room, painstakingly monitoring the slow rise and fall of Rolex's chest. Her condition seemed to be holding steady, but if her wound didn't get looked after, it would start to deteriorate soon enough. Once the vet came out and called him in, Peter let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and followed the vet into their office. The vet said something that Peter didn't fully process, and they laid Rolex down on a stainless steel table and covered her with a blanket. They then asked Peter to leave for a while. A few more tense minutes passed, during which he tried and failed to pry his concentration away from his injured cat by flipping through a pet care magazine, before the vet came back out and gave him the verdict.

    "I must say, your cat is in fairly bad condition," they said. Their name tag, right underneath the pin on their lapel reading "they/them" against the nonbinary flag, read "Dr. Gill". "It's lucky you managed to stop the bleeding as early as you did, or she would be beyond saving. As is, she'll most likely recover once I disinfect her wound and give her some stitches. Of course, that will cost you some money--two hundred dollars, to be exact. Can you afford to make that purchase, Mr…?"

    Peter's real name was on the tip of his tongue when he realized that giving it away to anyone would compromise his security. That was also when he realized that he had flown there in such a hurry that he'd completely neglected to shapeshift into someone inconspicuous. Fighting back a sudden burst of panic, Peter forced himself to stay composed and gave the first fake name he could think of.

    "Stanford," he said. "Cliff Stanford. And, yes, I can afford it."

    He shook hands with Dr. Gill and promised to come back the next day with the money, at which point Dr. Gill would perform the surgery. Immediately upon leaving the animal hospital, Peter headed for the bank. He and Sylar still had enough money left from their last withdrawal for another shopping trip or two, but not quite two hundred dollars. At the bank, Peter waited until he was certain nobody was looking. Then he bent down and reached out for the bottom of the teller machine. Tapping into his telekinesis borrowed from Sylar, who in turn had gotten it from god-knew-who, he summoned the bank card hidden beneath the machine into his hand. As his fingers closed around the card, Peter stood up and wiped it off on his pant leg. He then placed it in the slot for the machine to read it. The Petrelli family bank account, now only in his mother's name, popped up. He made a withdrawal of two hundred dollars, took the money, and pushed the card back underneath the machine. He couldn't just have a bank card lying around where people could find it, after all.

    Just as he was leaving the bank, somebody else strolled in. Recognition clicked in his mind, and he remembered seeing her at the grocery store on his last trip into town. At least he didn't look the same as he had then, so she wouldn't know it was him. He smiled and waved at her, then moved to hold the door for her as she walked into the bank. She smiled back, and a shiver ran down Peter's spine for reasons he didn't understand.

    Peter turned to leave, and fingernails dug into his wrist, sharp and piercing. Letting out a yelp, he whipped his head around to see the woman gripping his wrist and sneering at him.

    "What are you doing?" he demanded. "Let me go!"

    "I know what you are, freak," she hissed. "And I'm not letting you get away."

    She dug her nails in deeper. Peter winced as pinpricks of blood swelled up on his wrist. He tugged his hand away, but in doing so, her nails sliced through his skin and cut through an artery. A burst of pain shot through his wrist, and a thick spray of blood gushed from his wrist. The cut closed in seconds, leaving Peter standing in the doorway of the bank next to a small puddle of his own blood. Smirking, the woman flicked a couple droplets of blood off her fingernails, which were long, painted purple, and filed into tips. That was odd--he hadn’t noticed them being nearly that long or sharp at the grocery store--but he didn’t exactly have a lot of time to mull it over.

    "Oh, healing too? That's fun," she said. "I must admit, it will make it harder to get rid of you, but I'm sure I can manage something."

    Peter took a step back, out of the bank and onto the sidewalk. He glanced back and forth at the pedestrians, debating whether to fly away. Clearly this woman was out for blood, and if she had an ability like her clones, that could mean serious trouble. If he did fly away, though, he would be leaving this potentially dangerous woman around a bunch of innocent people. He had no idea whether she would take her anger out on them, but it wasn't a risk he was willing to take. Of course it would be easy enough to take her out with a well-placed lightning bolt, but that would just attract more unwanted attention.

    Peter's internal debate was cut short as a sudden wave of nausea swept over him. Bile rising in his throat, he stumbled back, falling off the edge of the sidewalk and onto the road. His head connected with the pavement and he lay stunned on his back for a moment as the woman walked over to him and dug what looked to be a knitting needle out of her bag. Peter scrambled to his feet and off the road; just as his feet landed on the sidewalk, a car roared over the spot he'd been a moment before. The woman's fingernails glinted in the sunlight, tiny drops of liquid glistening at the tips, and Peter realized with a sickening twist in his gut that it wasn't nail polish that made them purple. Another wave of nausea hit him and he fell to his knees, groaning.

    "You…" He raised his head to make eye contact with the woman, who was holding her knitting needle above his head like a knight about to bring down a sword. "You're like me. You have a power, too."

    She scowled. "I'm nothing like you, evo."

    Before he could react, she brought her arm down and thrust the needle into Peter's head. A blinding shock of pain shot through him, followed by darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a dreary day, which is perfect for an ever-present sense of melancholy. But of course, that's not the only thing happening around these parts... Tracy does some needle removal. Ando reminisces about his lost love. Claire takes the wheel.

    The prison doors swung open and Ando stepped out, escorted by Kimiko. She tossed him the keys to his car, which was parked, along with his motorcycle, a few blocks away in the old building that Hiro had once picked out to be their "lair". He had gotten a lot more use out of that motorcycle recently--way more than he ever had when Hiro was still around to nag him about how much it'd cost. He'd like to think Hiro would have been happy that his investment had finally paid off. The bad news was that the way Ando was using it kept leading to him winding up in jail. The good news was that Kimiko still didn't seem to totally hate him, judging by the fact that she was still coming by to bail him out whenever he asked. Whether it was genuine kinship toward him that she felt or just the same philosophy that drove him, trying to do what Hiro would have wanted, he would never know. Now, as he cast his gaze to the violet-streaked evening sky, Hiro was once again at the forefront of his mind.

    "It's been twelve years to the day, you know," he said. "Since we left on our quest to save the world. It feels like longer, don't you think? But it also feels like it's been no time at all."

    "Twelve years feels about right to me," Kimiko said. "How do you remember the date so well?"

    "I didn't," he admitted. "But Hiro did. October second. He wanted it to be the date of our wedding, so that I wouldn't keep forgetting. But then things came up, you remember, and we had to reschedule."

    Kimiko nodded. "December eighth," she murmured. "And you just had to hold it in Canada, too. It was so cold."

    "Well, we had to hold it somewhere where gay marriage was legal, didn't we?"

    "If you'd waited a few more years, you could have held it in America," she pointed out. "Hiro would have loved that. But you two just couldn't wait, I suppose."

    Ando shook his head. A cool wind swept through the air, and for a moment he could picture himself standing at an alter on a rocky beach in Nova Scotia. The scent of sea salt lingered in the air, mingling with the sounds of gentle piano music and waves crashing on the beach. It created a calming atmosphere, and the anxiety that had been building up inside Ando was swept away by a sudden wave of tranquility. Hiro bounced impatiently on his heels, not seeming to notice that his boutonniere was crooked, and when his eyes met Ando's, both of them grinned. In that moment, as they took each other's hands and recited their wedding vows, Ando realized that he'd been waiting for this since he was a child.

    Then Kimiko cleared her throat and Ando was jerked back to the present, on a sidewalk in Tokyo with the only scent in the air coming from a food stand down the road. He tucked his hands in his pockets, tilted his head back toward the darkening sky, and sighed.

    "I miss him, you know?" he said. "What you said on the phone earlier--you were right. We can guess, but we can't know what he would have wanted us to do. I guess I'm just doing… what reminds me of him."

    "Of course you do," Kimiko said quietly. "I miss him too. Part of me wishes…" She trailed off with a shake of her head. "Never mind."

    Sometimes Ando considered telling her that he didn't really, technically know for _sure_ \--that there might have still been a possibility that Hiro was alive. When that young American boy--Tommy--had shown up at his apartment a few years back, and talked about how he'd been raised in the past by Hiro, it didn't sound like Tommy had actually seen Hiro die. So there could have been a chance, maybe, that he hadn't. Ando wanted to think so, or at least hope so; he wanted desperately to keep holding out hope that he'd hear that familiar teleportation sound and turn around to see Hiro standing there. But if that was going to happen, it would have happened already. It was better to think and act as if there was no possibility that Hiro could be anything other than dead. Otherwise, it would just be setting himself and Kimiko up for further heartbreak when Hiro continued to not come back.

    They reached the parking garage, and Kimiko grabbed her bike, which was leaning up against the wall outside. She lifted her hand in a sort of half-hearted goodbye wave, which Ando returned. They then went their separate ways once again. Ando headed across town toward the hospital to check on how the kid he'd rescued was doing, and Kimiko went… back to work, probably, or maybe back to her own apartment, which was on the other side of town. Ando wished he had more to say to her, that there was more to catch up on, but there just wasn't that much to talk about.

* * *

 

    Something wasn't adding up about Claire.

    For one thing, her grave hadn't looked like it had recently been dug up. For another, regardless of what forces had brought her back to life, she simply didn't look like a woman who'd been dead for six years. Her hair wasn't as ragged as it should have been, and although it was believable that she would have dyed her hair black between waking up and meeting him at the graveyard, removing her baseball cap revealed that her blonde roots were growing back in. Clearly she'd had her hair dyed a while ago. Additionally, her body was completely intact, with absolutely no signs of decay. If anything, she looked to be in better shape than ever; her limbs bore well-defined muscles that definitely hadn't been there before. Mohinder wasn't sure what had happened to Claire in the past six years, or why the information was missing from her mind, but he knew for a fact that she had not been dead and buried for all that time.

    Between her lack of memory and her odd speech patterns, it was obvious that her mind had been seriously tampered with. Unfortunately, as well-versed with the human body as he was, Mohinder was not in any way an expert in matters of the mind. To make things worse, the one person who may have been able to help restore her mind was… no longer an option.

    He explained this to Claire while they stopped for breakfast at an overpriced cafe one morning, over breakfast at a diner in a small California town (not Costa Verde, because going to a place where Claire had lived at one point would have made the chance of her being discovered too great, but in the same general area). When he mentioned that she might have been missing memories, a cloud of distress settled over her eyes. She tore off a chunk of her blueberry muffin and chewed it slowly as Mohinder explained his reasoning.

    "Corpses decay--that's entry-level biology," he said. "You clearly have not decayed in the slightest. I believe that you were initially brought back to life almost immediately after dying, but your memory of the time between then and now has been either suppressed or removed."

    Claire grimaced. Swallowing down her bite of muffin, she took a sip of her latte and then leaned back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling.

    "We had spaghetti with long-term memory sauce," she muttered.

    "Indeed." Mohinder opened up a sugar packet, poured it into his coffee, and stirred it around with the plastic spoon the café had given him for his soup. "Do you have any idea who could be responsible? I can certainly think of one person off the top of my head."

    Claire nodded. Although he doubted her current lexicon possessed the man's name, he could tell that they were on the same page from the glint of recognition in her eye. If it was René, though, Mohinder simply didn't understand why. To protect her, perhaps--maybe Noah had even put him up to it. But that didn't seem like a command Noah would give. Also, the last time Mohinder had talked to him, he'd sounded far too depressed for a man who knew that his daughter was secretly alive. That didn't rule René out completely, of course, since he was perfectly capable of acting on his own terms, but it did rule out the notion that he was still affiliated with Noah. (Actually, now that he thought about it, hadn’t Noah mentioned something about _shooting_ René at some point? But that couldn’t be right; Mohinder had seen him buying chips at a convenience store just a few months ago.)

    "It must be rather frustrating for you, not being able to express yourself properly," Mohinder remarked as they were getting up to leave the diner.

    "Silence means that you can't speak," Claire agreed. "You can't let things out, they stay inside."

    "I do wish there was something I could do about that," Mohinder told her. "I have dealt with this sort of speech aphasia before, but I'm not certain I could reproduce the circumstances of how it was cured."

    Claire raised her eyebrows and gave him an expectant look, as if to say, _go on._ Mohinder cleared his throat, suddenly a bit flustered as he recalled the occasion. It all seemed rather silly, and perhaps a bit unethical, when he thought back on it now; he hoped Claire wouldn't think any less of him for it.

    "Well, you see, at some point Hiro's mind got scrambled, in colloquial terms, so that he could only speak in pop culture references," he explained. "I assume what's affecting you is something similar. Hiro's speech was reverted to normal through a form of electroshock therapy… only it wasn't just any electricity; it was Ando administering a small jolt of his own lightning. I honestly can't say if the same effects would have occurred with any other type of jolt. In fact, now that I think about it, it may well have been a sort of placebo effect."

    "I feel like if I focus," Claire put in, "and think of getting smaller, I'll gradually get smaller."

    "Yes, it's more or less to that effect. By the way," he added, upon realizing that Claire was most likely quite out of the loop, "I'm afraid to say that Hiro isn't around any longer. I'm not sure of Ando's whereabouts, but like I said, I don't think it was his lightning specifically so much as Hiro's subconscious unshakeable belief in him that…"

    He broke off as he stepped outside into a damp, chilling rain. A chill ran through his body and he shuddered. Claire, who was hanging back in the doorway to the diner, shot him a smirk.

    "Sudden rain outside alarms you," she said, a hint of laughter edging her voice. 

    Then, her teasing smirk giving way to a genuine, sweet smile, she removed the jean jacket she was wearing and tossed it to Mohinder. It didn't fit him particularly well, but he did his best to tug it on over his faded t-shirt with a science pun on it (a gift from--well. It hardly did him any favours to reminisce about that person). All the denim clothing really did was soak up the rain and press down heavy on Mohinder's back, but he certainly appreciated the gesture. Claire took off back to his car in a sprint; Mohinder toyed with the idea of informing her that one gets wetter when running in the rain than when walking, but decided against it. She got to the car before him and tugged on the handle a few times until he reached the car and opened it up. As he unlocked the car, he noticed her staring longingly at the steering wheel, and an idea occurred to him.

    "Would you like to drive for a while?" he offered. "I seem to recall you having gotten your driver's license."

    Claire grinned and nodded eagerly. Mohinder tossed her the car keys and she climbed in the front seat, while he climbed in the passenger side.

    "Trust me with navigations," she said, slapping the steering wheel. "I know the constellations."

    "Excellent," Mohinder replied. "And, since I don't have any particular destination planned out, you may decide where to take us next."

    The latter part of that sentence was drowned out as Claire popped a CD in the car stereo and the enchanting vocals of Mitski filled the car. Claire hummed along under her breath as she backed the car up, then shifted it into drive and took off down the puddle-speckled California roads.

* * *

 

    As soon as Barbara jabbed her knitting needle into the evo's head, it was like he was a puppet with severed strings. His eyes rolled back in his head and he lolled back, lifeless. Blood pooled around his head, forming a puddle on the sidewalk and dripping down off the curb. Barbara stood and watched for a minute, transfixed by the pooling blood and the sight of the needle sticking out of the top of his head. Her heart hammered as she watched the puddle of blood grow and grow. She kept expecting his eyes to snap open and for him to get back up and… and do whatever it was evos did to people they didn't like. A full minute passed, and he didn't move. A cold, hard satisfaction settled over Barbara, followed by a rush of exhilaration. He was dead. She'd killed him, and she could kill any other evos who crossed her path.

    A car honked, and the driver rolled the window down to shout, "What the fuck? Is that guy dead?!" Snapping back to attention, Barbara bent down and grabbed the dead evo by his overgrown bangs and dragged him a few feet down the sidewalk.

    "It's just a prop," she told the man in the car. "For a… a play I'm putting on! I play a serial killer, you see, and we couldn't figure out how to make it look like I was stabbing someone, so we just used this dummy for the scene!"

    The driver stared at her, looking perturbed and not entirely convinced, but he rolled his window back up and drove off in a hurry. Taking a couple of deep breaths, Barbara gathered the body into her arms and glanced around. The sidewalk was mostly deserted, as it was the middle of the day and most people were at work or school, so nobody was around to see her. Still, somebody could show up at any time. She had to get rid of the evidence, and fast, or at the very least distance herself from the huge pile of blood on the sidewalk. Luckily, her car was parked just across the street. She hurried over to it, stuffed the body in the trunk, and hopped inside.

    Where could she go now? Her house was out of the question. Somebody would figure it out eventually, and the cops would come for her. She would have to dispose of the body somewhere where nobody would find it. The forest, she decided, would be a safe bet. She didn't have a shovel to dig a ditch to bury him in, so maybe she could throw him in a river, or a lake. There was a campground with a lake just a few kilometres out of town, and on a cloudy Tuesday in October, it was a safe bet that the beach wouldn't exactly be crowded. She would go there, then, and throw the body in the lake. She'd make sure nobody saw her, and by the time the body was found, they'd have no way of knowing she was even involved.

    Barbara gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles as she drove, and her heart didn't stop pounding at any point on the drive. She didn't play the radio, which was rare for her. If there was music in the car, she wouldn't be able to hear an approaching police siren. Every time another car drove by, her breath caught in her throat, and she didn't fully relax even after they drove by without noticing that anything was amiss. Time ticked by painfully slowly. Barbara pressed her foot against the pedal and accelerated.

    An hour and a half that felt like an eternity later, she arrived at Lake Ghiacciato Campground. Slowing down as she entered the park, Barbara drove past the visitors' centre and rows of empty campsites until she reached the beach. There was a "no lifeguard on duty" sign, and right below that, a sign reading "swim at your own risk" in all caps. Barbara climbed out of the car and winced as she slammed the door without meaning to. She opened up the trunk, grabbed the body, and dragged it down the grass-speckled sand of the desolate beach. Her high heels sank into the sand, so she kicked them off; the sand was shockingly cold beneath her feet, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from yelping. The vast expanse of dark water swirled as she approached, and a sudden chill ran down Barbara's spine. As she reached the water's edge, she got the distinct feeling that she would be better off turning around and leaving.

    Up at the beach parking lot, there was a large rack with some kayaks and a couple of canoes. Barbara dropped the body at the water's edge and ran back up to the parking lot. She pulled down a kayak--there was no paddle, so she grabbed a large stick that was lying on the ground--and dragged it back down to the water. She stuffed the body inside, gave the kayak a firm push into the water, and hopped inside.

    She shot forward a couple feet, and then the kayak slowed right down. Hissing, she paddled at the water with her stick. It didn't go very smoothly, and she wound up going around in circles a few times, but she more or less got the hang of it after a few tries. Alternating which side of the kayak she paddled on, Barbara got a few metres past the roped-off boundary of the designated swimming area. All the while, water lapped dangerously high at the side of the boat, threatening to knock her over at any point. At this point, Barbara decided not to risk heading out any further. She tossed the body overboard and watched it sink beneath the murky, roiling waves.

    Barbara went home that night as though nothing had happened. As she washed her hands to scrub away the blood that had gotten caked onto her fingernails, they caught a glint of sunlight through the kitchen window, and for a moment they seemed to shine in a translucent violet hue. The evo's words echoed in her ears: _you have a power. You're like me._ For a moment, Barbara's conviction wavered. She wasn't an evo, of course she wasn't, but if she was… if anyone in Atikokan, at any time, could be an evo, what did that mean for her dear city?

    "I'm not one of them," she whispered to herself. Her words were drowned out by the trickle of water down the drain. "I'm nothing like them, and I never will be."

    She just wished she could entirely convince herself.

* * *

 

        Being a lake, or rather a small part of the water making up the lake but being able to extend your presence to control other parts of it, was a state of being which was hard to understand for anyone who wasn't undergoing it. To put it in the simplest possible terms, it was like perpetually swimming, without having to breathe but without being able to ever leave the water either. If she ever did revert to a human shape, she would die almost immediately, and at least being a lake was better than being dead. Even so, there were days when Tracy was content to zone out and mingle freely with the waters of the lake, paying no mind to the world around her.

    On a cold and dreary day, there were rarely any people around, so she could just float in silence save for the chirping of birds and other animals, and the faint rustle of trees in the forest, and of course the ever-present, steady ripple of water all around and within her. Actually, now that she thought about it, all those ambient noise were a far cry from silence. There were no _people_ making noises, though, so even with the constant rustling and chirping and so on in the background, it was still refreshingly tranquil. The wind skimmed across her surface with a light, almost ticklish ruffle, and Tracy would have smiled if she had a mouth with which to do so.

    Her peace was abruptly interrupted when her surface was disturbed by a kayak splashing across her. Disgruntled, she retracted her presence from the surface of the lake, though not before giving the kayak a little jostle. She didn't pay attention to who was in the kayak; she could tell they were by themselves, which meant they had nobody to loudly overshare their opinions to, so she had no way of knowing whether or not they deserved punishment. She watched from the bottom of the lake as they paddled out, rather clumsily and not with a proper paddle by the looks of it, until they were a few metres out onto the lake. Tracy sent up a couple ripples of agitation to rock their boat. Clearly this person wasn't an expert, and it wasn't safe for them to go much further out onto the water if they didn't know what they were doing.

    There was a heavy splash, and Tracy flinched (or the metaphysical equivalent thereof). For a moment she thought the kayaker had thrown themself overboard. But, no--the kayak turned around and headed back to the shore. Blood clouded the surface of the water, blocking Tracy's vision for a moment. When it cleared, she saw a motionless figure sinking toward her, blood trailing up from a needle poking out of his head. The water plastered a familiar pair of brunette bangs to his face, and a cold horror settled over Tracy as she recognized the dead body of Peter Petrelli.

    Immediately, Tracy extended herself, forming arms to wrap around Peter's body and hands to grasp the needle in his head. She didn't know who had brought him down, if it had been the kayaker or somebody else, but she knew she couldn't leave him like this. For a moment she simply held him in something almost like an embrace. The two of them had never been particularly close, but they had both been close to Nathan (albeit in very different ways, needless to say) and they had both had a strong connection to the Bennet family. Peter wasn't the kind of guy Tracy could have ever pictured herself missing until… until right about then, when he was floating dead in her watery arms. Then, just as she was teetering on the brink of falling into dismay, she came to her senses--he wouldn't stay dead for long, not if she had anything to do about it. She took a firm hold of the needle in his head and tugged it out.

    For a moment, nothing happened. Then Peter's glazed-over eyes sharpened back into focus and his chest heaved. With a surge of relief, she pushed him up to the surface. He spluttered, a jug's worth of water spilling out of his mouth, and then drew in a gasping breath. Tracy swirled around him, holding him up so he wouldn't have to tread water to stay afloat. He took in several more breaths, each deeper and more desperate than the last, until finally his breathing slowed and he blinked, rubbing his eyes. At this point, she let go of him, and he propelled himself upward to float in the air just above the surface.

    "Where am I?" he muttered aloud.

    Although she had occasionally whispered threats to swimmers who rubbed her the wrong way, it had been more than two years since Tracy had made an attempt to speak in full sentences and in a proper voice. She made the effort now, if for no other reason than that she was getting bored of sounding menacing whenever she spoke. In her current state, words just sort of trickled out of her with no regard to how human voiceboxes and throats and mouths generally worked. The voice still came out a couple octaves lower than normal, but it was close enough to her voice, and recognition dawned in Peter's eyes as he heard it.

    "You're in Lake Ghiacciato," she told him. "I guess somebody decided to dump your body here after murdering you. Good thing it didn't take, huh?"

    Peter's eyes widened. He ran his hand over his head, wiping away the caked-on blood from his now healed wound and swore under his breath. Then he looked down at the surface of the lake, brow knitting together.

    "Tracy? Thank you for saving me, but… why are you in a lake?" he asked. "And how long have you been here?"

    "A couple of years, I think," she said. "It's hard to keep track."

    "Why don't you come out and revert to your human form?"

    "Well…"

    Deciding it would be simpler just to demonstrate, Tracy swirled up from the surface of the lake and melded herself into a humanoid shape. She concentrated, and her liquid body began to take a solid shape. As her human form appeared, so did a knife lodged in her chest. Pain shot through her, and she gasped, pulling air into watery, half-formed lungs. Peter sucked in a breath and reached out for her, but as his hand made contact with the handle of the knife, Tracy buckled under the force of the pain and reverted to water. Peter's hand went right through her, and she lost her composure, splashing back down into the lake.

    "If I turn back into flesh and bone, I'll die," she told him. "I could leave the lake if I wanted, but I'm no better off anywhere else, and at least the scenery here is nice, so… here I am."

    A pang of bitterness hit her as Peter's expression clouded with pity. She didn't want his sympathy. Chances were good that he was much worse off than she was, seeing as he'd apparently just finished getting killed. Why couldn't that sentimental fool just learn to look after himself and leave other people be?

    "What happened to you?" he asked. "How did you end up like this?"

    Tracy barked out a laugh, or the closest approximation that her water form could muster. "Well, what do you think? I got stabbed in the chest with a knife," she replied.

    "I mean, yeah, but…"

    "I got stabbed, okay?" she cut him off sharply. "What more is there to say? The point is, I'm not in any trouble or anything, so don't worry about me."

    Peter flinched; almost immediately, Tracy dialled back her harsh tone. It was nothing personal, she just didn't want to share how the circumstances of her getting stabbed had arisen. She had let her guard down, and she _shouldn't have done that, damn it, she should have known better,_ but griping about it now wouldn't change anything.

    "You got stabbed too, so I've noticed," she remarked to change the subject. "How'd that happen?"

    "I met a clone of you," Peter told her. "She wasn't friendly. She has a power, too, although I don't think she realizes it yet--venomous fingernails."

    "Sounds like you've been having quite the time."

    Peter chuckled, brushing back a strand of wet hair from him face. "Yeah, I kind of have," he said. "I can tell you all about it, if you want."

    If she'd had a physical form, Tracy would have smiled. Peter's friendless was contagious, and for the first time in quite a while, she found herself craving human interaction. However, she was fairly certain that Peter had people who would be getting worried about him, so it probably wouldn't be the best idea for him to sit around swapping stories with her until he had let his friends and family, or whoever it was he was hanging around with lately, that he was okay.

    "Maybe another time," she suggested. "Right now, I think you'd better run along. Or, you know, fly along. Whichever."

    "Right," he agreed, with a dawning look of realization not dissimilar to someone remembering that they had left the oven on. "Take care, Tracy!"

    "Same to you."

    She watched him get up and fly away into the twilight sky, over the treetops, until he had disappeared from view. Something tugged at her, sharp and painful as the knife which had slid into her breastbone two years ago. Loneliness, perhaps, or regret, or a mix of the two.

    She knew she only had herself to blame for what had happened to her. She shouldn't have let her guard down; it was that simple. If it hadn't been for that face, that voice, that laugh… if it hadn't been for the park ranger's wife, she wouldn't be in her current situation. If it hadn't been for Shema, none of this would have happened to her.

* * *

 

    Micah faded back into consciousness slowly. The first thing he felt was a dull but steady throbbing in his head, followed by a harsh ache in his back and shoulders. He blinked open his eyes, and a white ceiling came into view, fuzzy at first but gradually sharpening into clarity. Rubbing his head, Micah looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was in a hospital room, and although the reason for this eluded him at first, it came rushing back fast enough. Groaning, he raised his hand to massage the side of his head; the gesture sent a twinge of pain through his shoulder, and with a wince he recalled a knife sinking into his flesh.

    As Micah gingerly lifted himself into a sitting position, a man walked into the room at a brisk pace. When Micah saw him, recognition hit him like a brick to the face. It was the very man he had come to Tokyo hoping to find--or rather, one of the two men he hoped to find. That being said, one of those men was rarely found without the other.

    "Um, hi! I've been looking for you," Micah blurted in English. He then repeated the greeting in Japanese, as his visitor regarded him with a somewhat startled look. "Ando Masahashi, right?"

    "That's me," he confirmed. "…How are you feeling? You got pretty bagned up by those punks on the street there."

    "It does hurt quite a bit right now, but I think I'll be okay," Micah said. Then he pressed on: "I've been hoping to find you and Hiro so I could talk to you about this idea I've got. Is Hiro still around? I know they were saying he died in that explosion a few years back, but that doesn't make sense to me. I have reason to believe he escaped the blast and that you've been secretly harbouring him. Point one: you've been going by the hyphenated surname 'Nakamura-Masahashi'. I think you're doing that because--"

    Ando held up a hand in a "stop" gesture and Micah fell silent. He let out a beleaguered sigh and pulled up a chair, where he sat down next to the hospital bed.

    "I'm going to stop you right there, kid," he said. "What's your name, anyway?"

    "We've met before, haven't we?" said Micah. "I'm Micah Sanders."

    "Whoa. Micah?" Ando asked, eyes widening. "You're Niki's kid? God, you've grown up."

    "Of course I have. A lot of time had passed, right? If I _hadn't_ grown up, that would be a problem. Or it could mean that time travel had been involved. Which brings me back to the point about Hiro." Micah cleared his throat and adjusted his posture. "He didn't really die in that explosion, did he?"

    For a long moment, Ando was silent. Micah had never been very good at reading people, but if he had to guess, he'd say that Ando was thinking hard. He looked a little bit sad, too. An old clock on the wall ticked away persistently as Micah awaited a reply.

    "No," Ando said after a long while. "No, Hiro didn't die there."

    "So he is alive! I knew it," Micah said, perking up a bit and leaning forward intently. "Question two: why are you going by a hyphenated surname? What purpose does that serve?"

    "That's…" Chuckling slightly, Ando shook his head. "Whatever you're thinking the explanation is, that's not it. We got married, is all, and we took each other's names. Mr. and Mr. Nakamura-Masahashi." He sighed again, gaze dropping. "He's not alive, though. That's where you're wrong."

    Micah blinked, taking a few seconds to process the information. He very nearly said "congratulations", but caught himself at the last moment as the latter part of what Ando had just said sunk in. The information brought a sinking feeling to his chest, like a spinning disc clogged up with dust. He had tried not to build his entire plan around the idea of Hiro still being alive, he'd really tried to hope for the best but assume the worst, but… In the end, the ideas he had formulated for getting the band back together, so to speak, and forming a sort of global superhero team all hinged on having someone who could get from place to place instantly. Without Hiro in the equation, it wouldn't necessarily be _impossible_ to pull off, but the question remained of who would even be willing to put such a plan into action. Something balled up in the back of Micah's throat, and he suddenly found himself struggling not to cry. Nearly a year of careful planning had most likely been wasted on his part. He could've spent that time doing other things, damn it, why hadn't he…

    Shaking his head to dismiss his self-deprecating thoughts, Micah took some deep breaths and tried to steady himself. A superhero team had been a long shot to begin with; on some level he'd understood that much even when he'd gotten the most wrapped up in his planning. But getting the band back together, or what was left of it, was still on the table. Step one, he figured, was to try to form a bond--which he'd never been too good at, but he liked to think he was getting better. Aunt Tracy had said that asking questions about the other person was a good place to start, so Micah decided to give that a try.

    "Could you tell me what happened with you and Hiro?" he asked. "Getting together and everything, I mean."

    "Well, I don't exactly have anything better to do," Ando said. "So… alright. Um, where do I even begin? Okay, I guess a good place would be when he changed the timeline…"

* * *

 

    After listening to _Be the Cowboy_ all the way through a couple times--Claire had never heard it before, but she really loved the sound of it--she pulled over opened up the glove compartment to rifle through Mohinder's CD collection. The sun was sitting low in the sky at this point, but the rain had finally let up and the clouds were beginning to part. Mohinder was still wearing her soaked-through jean jacket; if she'd had a camera on hand, she would have taken a picture and sent it to… well, nobody, she supposed. The whole "not being able to let anyone know you're alive again" thing really took some getting used to.

    "What fun should we have today?" Claire mused as she scanned the assortment of CDs. "Shook my magic 8 ball and it said…"

    Deciding to leave it up to fate, she closed her eyes and reached for a CD at random. She came away with "The Eagles' Greatest Hits", which decidedly would not have been her first choice, but she supposed it would do. However, when she popped the case open to take the disc out, she noticed a folded-up piece of paper inside. Intrigued, she unfolded the paper to reveal a faded photograph. It showed a somewhat sparsely decorated room, with a half-open window through which sunlight was filtering and illuminating the dust motes that hung in the air. In the corner of the room near the window was a couch where a man and a young girl were lying together. His arms were wrapped around her, and both of them had content looks on their sleeping faces. Although it took her a second, Claire recognized the man in the photo as Matt. She didn’t know who the girl was, but she was fairly certain she’d seen her once before--at Kirby Plaza, maybe.

    She looked over at Mohinder and tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “Click-click, auto-focus,” she said, gesturing to the photo.

    When Mohinder saw her holding the photo, a strange look came over his face.

    “Ah… with all due respect, I would rather you not look at that,” he told her. “And don’t ask about it, please. It’s just a relic of a bygone time.”

    With an understanding nod, she handed the photo over to Mohinder, who folded it back up and, after hesitating for a moment, tucked it into his shirt pocket. As he did this, he seemed to soften, and she almost thought she saw the glint of a tear in his eye. Curiosity tugged at her, but she respected his wishes and didn’t pry. If somebody had found a photo of her and… well, any of the people she’d been with throughout her life, really… she probably wouldn’t be too eager to divulge too much information about it. Besides, as out of the loop as she was after having been dead for several years, she knew that, in the time leading up to her death, Mohinder had considerably grown apart from the LAPD officer, so she figured he probably wanted to keep the past in the past. With a shrug, she put the Eagles CD in the player and let the serotonin-inducing lyrics of “Take It Easy” divert her thoughts from Mohinder’s faded photograph.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did things wind up this way, anyway? Let's take a look back in time and find out...  
> Mohinder learns some harsh ACAB truths. Peter and Sylar talk about names. Tracy goes camping with some new old friends.

-10 YEARS AGO-

 

    "So, you and Kimiko…" Hiro said with that smug-cat look he got sometimes. "Do I hear wedding bells?"

    Well, that was an odd thing for him to say. Hiro knew full well that Ando was gay and Kimiko was a lesbian. Initially, Ando thought that whatever had been making Hiro faint recently was also the cause of his confusion. Alternatively (hopefully) Hiro was just messing with him. A bit taken aback, he decided to just play along. Once Hiro had left to do who-knew-what, he pulled Kimiko aside to talk with her in the dial-a-hero office.

    “I think something is wrong with him,” he admitted. “Like… in his brain. He seems to think we’re dating, and going to get married.”

    Kimiko’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not good.”

    “Tell me about it!”

    “Maybe I should go test to see if he really thinks that,” she mused. “Hold on a minute, I’m going to go talk to him.”

    She came back a minute later with a grimace.

    “Okay, I asked if he wants to give me away at the wedding,” she said. “And judging by his reaction, he’s definitely under the impression that a wedding between us is actually going to happen. Maybe you should, er… explain that both of us are gay?”

    “Maybe,” Ando agreed. He glanced out the window of the office, where Hiro was pacing up and down the halls, periodically glancing at them with an expectant look, and a twinge of worry stirred in his gut and he sighed. “I don’t know, Kimiko, I think something might be really wrong with him.”

    As it turned out, his worries were correct, and soon Ando’s mind was taken up with much larger concerns than Hiro’s mistaken impressions of his interpersonal relationships. A couple weeks later, however, Hiro was (somehow, miraculously) 100% cured, his mind entirely back to normal. As Ando sat beside his hospital bed, gripping his hand like it was his lifeline, Hiro turned his head to smile at him. Ando’s heart fluttered, and he returned Hiros smile, trying very hard not to let tears creep into his eyes.

    “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he murmured.

    “Me too,” Hiro said with a weak chuckle. Then he let out a tiny gasp, as though just remembering something, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, and you’ll never believe how I got better! I had this dream, or maybe a vision. Dad was there, and so was Kensei, and they put me on trial for changing the tieline, and you were my defense lawyer!”

    “I was a lawyer?”

    Hiro nodded. “And then I had a swordfight with Kensei, and I stabbed him. Hyah!” He jabbed his hand up in a stabbing motion, and Ando couldn’t help but smile. “And then Mom showed up and kissed me on the forehead, and my tumour disappeared!”

    “Wow…” Ando muttered. “Lucky you.” Then the detail about changing the timeline registered with him, and he narrowed his eyes. “Hold on, how did you change the timeline?”

    ( _Can I not take my eyes off you for five minutes?_  he almost wanted to add, but decided to keep the thought to himself. He knew how proud Hiro could be; he wouldn’t appreciate knowing how much Ando fretted about him.)

    “I told you that I went back to three years ago and saved Charlie, right?” Hiro asked. Then a sheepish expression crept onto his face and he added in a half-whisper, “And I stopped you from spilling a slushie on Kimiko when we were kids so that you could date her.”

    Ah, that explained why Hiro thought they were together. It was good that his confusion wasn’t caused by something messing with his head, at least, but now Ando realized he should have just clarified the issue to begin with instead of playing along with it. He sighed and shook his head.

    “Hiro, as much as I appreciate the effort… nothing you could change in the past will get us together. She’s not attracted to men, and I--as long as it took me to figure out--am not attracted to women.”

    Hiro’s brow knitted together, and his mouth quirked into a befuddled frown. “But… but the butterfly effect,” he said. “And--you’re gay? Why didn’t you tell me?”

    “I mean, we did tell you, in the timeline I remember.”

    “Oh.” Hiro blinked, and his shoulders slumped slightly--presumably in disappointment, but there was what sounded like a hint of relief in his voice when he spoke. “If I had known, I would have asked you o--” Then, just as quickly as they had relaxed, his muscles tensed up. Mouth snapping shut, he hastily averted his gaze, cheeks turning a rosy red. “I--I would have tried to set you up with some nice men.”

    At that moment, Ando recalled a day in the timeline he remembered, long before he'd figured out his own sexuality, when he and Hiro had sat together in his bedroom playing a video game. Hiro had very suddenly put the game on pause and turned to Ando, looking uncharacteristically serious, and said that he thought he might be bisexual. For a second Ando had wondered if Hiro was going to ask him on a date. He didn't, and simply resumed playing the video game without saying anything more on the subject--but, to be honest, Ando probably wouldn't have said no. He knew he wouldn't say no now, if Hiro asked him out. He just didn't think…

    "Hiro," he whispered, praying that he wasn't misreading the situation, "Do you have a crush on me?"

    "No!" Hiro cried, way to quickly and loudly. Covering his face with his hands, he rolled over on the bed to face Ando and looked at him through a crack in his fingers. "Maybe. Yes. But--but I can never be with the people I love, and… well, I thought you were straight."

    "Well, uh…" Ando swallowed hard, face heating up. "...I'm not."

    He and Hiro stared at each other for a long moment, blushing. The air in the hospital room was so thick with the awkward tension of pent-up feelings that you could cut it with an ancient katana. Finally, after what felt like hours, Hiro adjusted his posture with a little wriggle and cleared his throat.

    "Can I--" He broke off, holding Ando's gaze with wide eyes, then tried again. "Can I kiss you?"

    With a surge of giddiness, Ando leaned forward and cupped Hiro's face in his hand. Hiro propped himself up and leaned toward him so that their foreheads touched. The proximity, the _contact,_ felt unbearably correct, and Ando wondered how on earth it had taken them so long.

    "Of course," Ando said; his voice hitched as his breath caught in his throat.

    Hiro grinned, dazzling and full of unchecked adoration. He placed his hand on Ando's shoulder and pulled him into a kiss.

* * *

 

-9 YEARS AGO-

 

    For the first few months after Claire jumped, nobody knew quite what to do. At one point, Angela held a Petrelli-Bennet family meeting to try to work out a plan. At least, that was what it was ostensibly meant to be. As it was, Peter brought Sylar with him, and Tracy showed up partway through, devoid of any sort of invitation. After a short, very unproductive time, Noah elected that they give up on trying to come to a consensus, and that everyone should take whatever individual actions they saw fit. Sylar paid little attention to what everyone else was doing, as he knew they weren't particularly happy to have him around and didn't care much for his wellbeing. He could hardly blame them, either. Still, it was nice that at least Peter cared about what happened to him. And, after swooping in to save him from the crossfire of a violent riot or two, Sylar was surprised to discover that the feeling was mutual.

    "We should go hide away somewhere," Sylar suggested to Peter one evening, several months after the incident at the carnival, as they stood atop the Deveaux building together. "Somewhere we would be safe, where it's just the two of us."

    Peter glanced up from the pigeon he was feeding and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He walked over to stand beside Sylar at the edge of the building, and laid a hand on his back. Sylar flinched at the contact, and Peter immediately took his hand away and stuffed it in his pocket.

    "I don't know, Sylar," he said. "I don't think I can--no, I _know_ I can't just leave everyone behind like that."

    "They'll be fine," Sylar told him, although both of them knew he couldn't say that for certain. "Your family and friends aren't helpless--trust me, I've fought quite a few of them in the past. Even Claire is practically an adult now. They can take care of themselves."

    "I guess so," Peter muttered. "But I don't want to leave them. And… no offense, Sylar, but being alone with you for five years was enough. I can't spend the rest of my life that way."

    Sylar stiffened at the remark. Again, it wasn't as if he could blame Peter, or anyone, for not wanting to spend that much time with him. However, this went beyond some idealistic fantasy of running away to live together on a remote farm or on some far-off tropical island. Every time some kind of anti-evo violence broke out in New York, Peter placed himself in the thick of it, regardless of the ability he had on hand at the time. More often than not, he wound up getting beaten to within a couple inches of life, and if he kept it up he wouldn't always be so lucky. Sylar wasn't the only one worried about Peter, but he was the only one who had a solid plan as to how to help him.

    "It won't be like the time with the wall," he assured him. "I can see to that. I can find a nice place for us, somewhere with lots of wildlife. And we'll still be able to interact with the outside world sometimes--shapeshifted, for our own safety, but…"

    Tentatively, he placed a hand on Peter's arm, and was pleasantly surprised when the touch wasn't accompanied by a pang of discomfort. He supposed it made sense; his touch aversion mostly applied to when other people touched him without asking. Peter held his gaze with eyes that were dark with concern. With the dark circles under his eyes, his hair growing out ragged, and a bit of stubble dotting his chin, he already looked like he'd spent the past few months fending for himself. Sylar wished he could understand his point of view. Leaving civilization would not only remove them from danger, but it would also remove Peter from the source of his worry; Sylar was sure that he would be much happier in the end if they took off for some remote location where they could never be found.

    "I only want what's best for both of us," Sylar said. "You understand that, don't you?"

    "...I'll talk to Ma about it," Peter said. He held Sylar's gaze for a moment longer, and something seemed to stir between them, although Sylar somehow couldn't puzzle out exactly what. A sort of not-quite-smile crossed Peter's face, and he clapped Sylar on the shoulder. "Hey, I'll talk to you later, okay?"

    Sylar watched him fly off into the darkening sky and wondered why his heart was suddenly speeding up. Somewhere on the streets below, angry shouts rang out, followed shortly by gunshots. Sylar turned his back to the skyline and went about shooing the pigeons back into their enclosures.

* * *

 

    Angela woke from a dream about two men standing in the woods together, sunlight filtering through the leaves and casting dappled light across their backs as they assembled a log cabin. They both donned long black coats, and as the dream progressed, one of the men stepped aside and peeled his coat off. The dream seemed to zoom in on him, and the way he moved, and the way his dark hair fluttered in the wind. She didn’t get a very good look at him, but as she got out of bed that morning, she was almost certain she knew who he was. A few hours later, Peter came to visit her--looking even worse for wear than the last time he’d dropped by--and before he was even in the door, she could guess what he was about to tell her. Even so, in case she was wrong, she gave him the chance to say his bit anyway. Maybe her dream was about somebody else altogether, or not prophetic at all. As soon as he spoke, however, she knew her suspicion was correct.

    “Hey, Ma,” he said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his long black coat. He spoke slowly, as though the weight of his voice was dragging it down. “What would you think if I… moved away? If I went somewhere where nobody could find me.”

    “What would _you_ think about it?” she asked, keeping her voice smooth and calm despite the pang of sorrow the idea brought her. Peter leaving as the last thing she wanted, but if he would be safer away from other people, then that would be the best option for him.

    Peter shrugged--not in a casual way, but in the manner of a troubled young man trying very hard to seem more casual than he was. Angela stepped forward and laid and hand on his shoulder; Peter closed his eyes and exhaled, leaning into her touch. When he opened his eyes, they were clouded with indecision. He sighed, and the breath ruffled his bangs, which had grown out even longer than they had been previously. Angela suppressed the urge to reach out and tuck his unruly hair back behind his ear. Hair that long almost reminded her of how he looked when he was very young, and had gone by a different name, before he had realized who and what he was.

    “I don’t… I don’t want to leave you, or the Bennets, or Emma, or my job, or… or this city,” he said. “But Sylar says that leaving would be the best option.”

    At the mention of Sylar, Angela tensed up, and bit down on her tongue to stop herself from making a disparitive remark. She had half a mind, now especially, to do anything to prevent Peter from going. Sylar was the last person she wanted her son to take off into the woods with, but if that was what was meant to happen--if that was what would be _best_ \--then she would have to allow it. Taking a couple of deep shaky breaths, she moved to stand behind him and began to stroke his hair. As she did, a lump swelled in her throat. His hair had never been particularly well-kempt, which had been the source of many lectures on her and Arthur’s point when he was growing up, but now it was downright ragged, with dirt caked in here and there. Unruly as it was, he’d never let it get like that before. Beneath it, she could feel scars running over the back of his head, and he let out a tiny hiss of pain when she pressed her fingers down on a certain spot that felt tender to the touch. Additionally, now that she got a better look at him, she noticed that his coat was torn in several places.

    The way he was living now was not good or safe for him. That much was obvious. And, as much as she disliked his, or rather, Sylar’s method of choice, anything would be better than for him to go on this way.

    “Wherever you go, you can’t tell anyone,” she told him. “Not me, not Claire, nobody. If anyone knows your exact location, that information can be extracted. Do you understand?”

    Peter didn’t look at her. After a moment, he nodded.

    “I can get you some supplies, and a bank card so that you can withdraw money from the family account when you need to,” she told him. “If Sylar ever turns on you... “ She paused, gaging Peter’s reaction; he glanced over his shoulder to look at her expectantly. “Kill him.”

    “He won’t turn on me,” Peter mumbled. Then he blinked and repeated it, this time with a firmer voice: “He won’t turn on me.”

    “Of course not, dear.”

    Peter turned to give Angela a hug, and she kissed his forehead. Then they pulled apart and, with a swish of his tattered coat, he turned to leave.

* * *

 

-8 YEARS AGO-

 

    Downtown LA buzzed with summer heat, feeding the adrenaline of the protesters crowding the streets. Around them, parked cars honked in annoyance, but the protesters shouted louder to drown them out. Even as people passing by booed and the distant wail of police sirens grew louder, they stomped their feet and waved their signs in the air. In the centre of the crowd, Mohinder brandished a brightly painted sign reading "POWER TO THE PEOPLE WITH POWERS" in large all-caps letters.

    "Powers don't define us! Powers don't define us!" the crowd chanted, a sea of voices pitted against a world of indifference. "One of us, one of them, doesn't make a difference!"

    The sirens grew louder, and a police cruiser pulled up, right next to the woman leading the protest. The doors opened, and an officer stepped out. The protesters continued to shout, straining their voices to be heard over the sirens, and they stood their ground even as two more cruisers pulled up and the cops surrounded them. With so many people crowded around him, Mohinder couldn't get a very good look at what was happening, but the protesters' chants quickly devolved into a screaming match, and he heard the distinctive click of a gun's safety being turned off. A chill ran down his spine, and rebellious words died in his throat. Around him, however, the other protesters kept on yelling and chanting. Mohinder admired their resolve, he truly did, but he knew that things would go very badly at this point if everyone continued to hold their ground--which was exactly what happened.

    There was a zapping sound, though Mohinder couldn't tell whether it came from a taser or a person with lightning powers. He sincerely hoped it was the latter. The chanting dissolved into frantic screams, and the people around him began to swarm around like a swarm of bees without a queen, some running while others refused to. For a moment, Mohinder’s mind went blank, and he simply stood there, sign half-lowered, as though his feet were rooted in place. Then, very suddenly, a loud, grating high-pitched noise rang out. The sound made Mohinder’s head feel like it was going to burst. He clamped his hands over his ears, which rang as the noise persisted. Around him, people collapsed to their knees. Mohinder gritted his teeth and dug his fingers deeper into his ears, but the sound seemed to dig directly into him, sending waves of pain through his head. Eventually, his knees buckled and he fell onto the ground, where others around him were falling and writhing in pain. His sign fell from his grasp and clattered to the ground in front of him.

    Then, just as suddenly as the noise had started, it stopped. Mohinder sagged with relief and reached out to grab his sign. However, just as his hand closed around the handle, a black boot came down on it. Wincing, Mohinder retracted his hand and raised his head to see a cop glaring down at him. Yells of protest rung out around him, and as he looked from side to side, he saw the police cuffing the other protestors and dragging them over to the police cars. Everyone scrambled to their feet and tried to get away; a spiked boot grazed the side of Mohinder’s face as a young woman ran past him, and a gash opened on his cheek. The officer standing over him shouted and started running after her, leaving Mohinder lying stunned on the pavement. His heart was hammering, and the ringing in his ears had yet to die down, and he had absolutely no idea what to do. Get away, he supposed. Wiping a bit of blood off his cheek, he shakily got to his feet. He took a step forward only to feel a sharp tug at his collar. Mohinder turned around to see another officer holding him by the back of his shirt--but not just any officer. With dawning horror, Mohinder recognized the man lowering cuffs toward his wrists, and he saw the same recognition dawn in the other man’s eyes as well.

   "Mohinder," Matt whispered, lowering the handcuffs and releasing his grip on Mohinder. "You shouldn't be here."

    A miasma of conflicting emotions stirred within Mohinder--fear, joy, hatred, love. Confusion seemed to be at the forefront. He stepped backward, not daring to break away from Matt's intense gaze. It didn't feel as though his mind was being probed, which was a relief, but--well, there was no "but", not really. He shouldn't have been so surprised to see his old flame there. Like it or not, Matt was a police officer. He just would have thought, or rather hoped, that Matt would have come to see how corrupt his occupation was by now and perhaps left it for another job. Evidently, that was too much to expect from him.

    "And why the hell shouldn't I be here, Matthew?" Mohinder demanded. "Surely a man with psychic powers supports evo rights!"

    "Hey, keep it down!" Matt snapped, hand jumping to his side as though it were second nature for him to reach for his gun--which, Mohinder realized with a shudder, it probably was. Then Matt leaned in closer to Mohinder and hissed, "Nobody at the precinct knows I have powers. If they did…"

    "They might fire you," Mohinder supplied. Tensing his jaw, he narrowed his eyes and straightened his posture. "Well, Matthew, I would certainly hate for that to happen. I'd hate to think that you'd no longer be able to come break up peaceful protests and arrest people who haven't done anything wrong."

    "Listen, I don't like this any more than you do," Matt muttered. "But this is my job. I'm just doing what I have to."

    "You don't have to do any of this," Mohinder told him. "You can stop, quit your job, start a new career. We could even attend protests like this together instead of… well. Instead of it turning out like this."

    He paid close attention to Matt's face as he spoke. It was hard to read; he wasn't smiling, but he wasn't frowning either. His eyes were slightly narrowed, and his lips were pressed together, as though he were carefully considering Mohinder's words. After a moment, he stepped forward and took Mohinder's hands in his own. In that second, Mohinder couldn't help but smile despite the circumstances. His hands were warm and steady, and though his face carried a trace of anger, Mohinder couldn't imagine Matt doing anything to harm him.

    Then a pair of handcuffs snapped, cold and tight, around Mohinder's wrists. Matt's face contorted with guilt, but he locked the cuffs and, wrapping his arm around Mohinder's shoulders, led him over to the back of a police car. Mohinder swallowed back the bitter taste rising in his mouth and held his gaze straight ahead, not meeting Matt's eyes as he led him to the police car and nudged him inside. He truly wished that he felt more betrayed in that moment, but truth be told, he hadn't truly expected any different. Matt could be a good man, when the people he loved were on the line, but it seemed as though Mohinder simply wasn't one of those people anymore.

* * *

 

-7 YEARS AGO-

 

    Gunshots rang out down a dark alleyway, ricocheting off the narrow walls around them. A clanging sound rang out as a bullet bounced off Hiro's sword, and he let out a little whimper, tightening his hold on Ando's waist. Ando looked over his shoulder at Hiro and pressed a brief kiss of reassurance to his temple, then gritted his teeth and turned his focus back to the rapidly approaching light at the end of the alleyway. As they rocketed out of the alley and onto the street, he leaned hard to the left, nearly tipping his motorcycle over in the process. The tires squealed against the pavement as they made the sharp turn, but the motorcycle righted itself and they carried on down the street, leaving their pursuers in the dust. Hiro cheered, raising his arms in the air.

    "Woah, don't take your hands off me," Ando warned, slamming his foot on the brakes. They screeched to a halt outside an empty lot where a new store was being built, and Ando turned to face Hiro, who was grinning away like he'd just won the lottery. "You could've gone flying off."

    "I know, I know. But that was really cool!" Hiro said, clapping Ando on the shoulder. "You should do that more often."

    Despite himself, Ando blushed. "You think so?"

    Hiro nodded. Then he glanced over Ando's shoulder and his eyes widened, his smile quickly replaced with a fearful expression. Heart quickening, Ando turned around to see four of the gang members they'd been running from coming up the sidewalk toward them, guns in hand.

    "Well, shit," Ando muttered.

    The gang member at the front aimed his gun directly at him and fired. Hiro squeezed Ando's hand, and before he could even blink, they were standing behind the gang members. Hiro hit one on the back of the head with the dull edge of his sword and they toppled over, while Ando directed a lightning blast at another. The two remaining members fired at Hiro, who teleported to across the street. As the gang members stared in confusion at the empty space in front of them, Ando grabbed them both from behind and sent an electric charge through their bodies. They collapsed to the ground, and from across the road, Hiro gave him two thumbs up. The next moment, they were back on the motorcycle, as though nothing had even happened.

    "I could have taken them out, you know," Hiro said a few minutes later, when they were safely back in their lair (still a dumb term, but that was what Hiro insisted on calling it). "I hardly even got to use my sword!"

    "Maybe next time I'll leave a guy for you," Ando suggested jokingly as Hiro sat down beside him to sharpen his blade.

    "Hmm. Maybe."

    With a pang of anxiety from the lack of enthusiasm in Hiro's voice, Ando looked up from his motorcycle, hanging the rag he was using to wipe it down over the handlebars. Hiro was sitting cross-legged, his sword sitting in his lap, and looking down at himself with a worried frown. Ando couldn't tell what he was looking at, but it couldn't have been good.

    "Hiro?" Ando whispered, dread settling over him. "What happened? Are you alright?"

    "Ah, it's nothing," Hiro said quickly, scooting away from Ando and turning so that his left side was hidden from view. "Go back to cleaning your bike."

    "Darling, please be honest," Ando persisted, laying a hand on Hiro's back. "You got hurt, didn't you?" Hiro said nothing, but the way his face contorted said it all. "Come on, show me."

    Grimacing, Hiro lifted his shirt to reveal a jagged gash running down his side. Upon seeing it, Ando sucked in a breath and reached out to lay his hand on the skin next to the wound. It didn't look too deep, thank god, and it wasn't bleeding--it looked like it had been, but the blood had clotted--but it was still a nasty sight to behold.

    "I'm not really hurt, though," Hiro insisted. "It's fine. We're fine."

    Ando shook his head. "You need to get that looked after."

    "But, honey, I'm _fine_ \--"

    "You're not!"

    "It's barely a scratch," Hiro said, tugging his shirt back down with a pout. Now that Ando got a better look at it, he noticed that it was tattered and soaked through with blood around the area of the cut. "Besides, what matters is that you didn't get hurt."

    He leaned back, resting his head against the front wheel of the motorcycle. Sighing, Ando decided to drop the subject for now, although he made a mental note to clean Hiro's injury up as soon as he got the chance, and to keep a better watch on his boyfriend next time. He looped his arm around Hiro's waist and pulled him in close; Hiro let out a little murmur of contentment and snuggled up against Ando like a cat curling up beside its owner--or in this case, another cat, he supposed. They sat in silence like that for a minute, heartbeats slowing into sync with each other, as a sliver of late afternoon sunlight filtered through the half-open window. When Hiro spoke back up, it took Ando by surprise, thanks in no small part to what he said.

    "You know…" He leaned forward, away from the motorcycle, and ran his hand through his hair to wipe off some oil. "We should get married."

    Ando's eyebrows shot up, but Hiro carried on without giving him the chance to say anything--fair enough, because he couldn't think of anything to say aside from some incomprehensible stammering.

    "We live in dangerous times, my love," Hiro said, laying a hand on Ando's knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. "It seems like we almost die every day now. And if I die, I want it to be as your husband. I know it's not legal here, but there are some places where it is, so… we should do it. Get married. While we still can."

    The message of his words, as painful to face as they were, stuck their landing. Ando thought it over for a minute--thought about how much time he had spent bottling up his feelings for Hiro, and how much he regretted not telling him how he felt sooner. They had only been dating for a few years, and during all that time the world had been in a state of socio-political chaos, but they had known each other all their lives. It was enough time to fall truly and deeply in love with Hiro, and since he was the one to bring up marriage, Ando had to assume Hiro felt exactly the same. They loved each other, and like Hiro said, it was impossible to tell how much time they had left before something or other caught up with them. So, why not get married?

    Slowly, Ando nodded, and as he did, the smile finally reached Hiro's eyes. They interlaced their fingers and gazed at each other; fondness exploded in Ando's heart, and he saw it shining back at him in Hiro's gaze.

    "Okay then," he said, biting back a giddy laugh. "Let's get married."

    And so, a few months later, they did. They chose the location after much deliberation--a rocky beach on the east coast of Canada. It was a somewhat private ceremony, with only a few people in attendance, and nothing too extravagant, but it was easily the happiest day of Ando’s life. It was hard to tell whether the same was true for Hiro, as he was so often joyful on almost every day, but he did stand out as particularly exuberant on their wedding day. Just for a moment, as they exchanged vows on that rocky Nova Scotia beach, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. Like maybe, if destiny was kind to them, nothing would go wrong ever again.

* * *

 

    ...And then a lot of things happened, and a lot of things went wrong. Claire hooked up with some jerk who honestly didn't deserve her, and he got her pregnant. She chose to end the relationship but keep the pregnancy. Hiro just… disappeared, one day, and Ando had no idea what happened to him. Matt lapsed further and further from any semblance of heroism. New faces emerged, and some old ones vanished for good. Out in the cottage in the woods, Peter was aware of none of this.

    At first, just as he thought it would, being alone with Sylar had reminded Peter of their time in the empty mindscape they’d been trapped in together. But, just as Sylar had said, the scenery was much nicer this time. They built a wood cottage all on their own, assembling it piece by piece from fallen trees with help from Sylar’s intuitive aptitude to get all the measurements right, and they took on disguises and went into town to make withdrawals from the local bank and buy furniture and other supplies they needed. Peter bought a broken portable stereo and a collection of cassettes and CDs from an Atikokan pawn shop, and Sylar fiddled with the stereo until it would work again. Sylar found a lost kitten in the woods, so malnourished that its ribs were visible under its dirt-coated black fur, and Peter nursed it back to health. Gradually, they each found their niche in this new lifestyle they built for themselves, and Peter was surprised to find just how small the distance between those niches was.

    One morning, in the spring of 2014, while Sylar was bent over the stereo and muttering quietly to himself as he rerouted the wires to try to get a clearer sound and Peter was cradling the kitten and feeding it milk from a baby bottle, a soft wind stirred outside the cottage and carried the scent of freshly blooming flowers in through the open window. Contentment settled in Peter’s chest, and he smiled, gently rubbing his thumb behind the kitten’s ears. It blinked up at him and let out a little mewl. Sylar glanced up from his work and turned to Peter, brow furrowing.

    “What was that noise?”

    “Huh? Oh, that was just the cat,” Peter said. In his arms, the kitten licked its lips and stretched its mouth open in a long, silent yawn. “She’s really been looking a lot better now. I think she’s going to pull through.”

    “I suppose we'll have to keep her, then," Sylar remarked, leaning with his back up against the counter. Behind him, the stereo whirred, waiting for a CD to be placed inside. “I wouldn’t mind having a cat. It is a big responsibility, of course, but I’d be up for it if you’d be.”

    "What kind of name should we give her, do you think?"

    Sylar shrugged. "You know, I named myself after a brand of watch, so I don't know if I should be your first choice to ask for naming advice," he said with a sort of almost-chuckle. "Peter, though, that's a nice name. I'm assuming you chose it for yourself when you came out?"

    "Yeah, I did." Peter shifted his weight slightly, rocking the kitten gently back and forth. Its fur had a healthier sheen to it now, and it had a decent amount of meat on its delicate little bones. "It's nothing too special, though. I, uh…" Blushing, he brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes and rubbed the back of his head. "I kind of named myself after Peter Parker, to be totally honest."

    "Well, I still think it's a nice name," Sylar said. As he spoke, he took a CD off the counter and popped it in the stereo. "Very… saintly."

    A warmth swelled in Peter’s chest, and gradually, it seeped into his cheeks as well. The stereo whirred, and after a couple seconds, Sylar pressed the play button and a hauntingly beautiful melody began to play. Although he didn't know the name of the song at the time, Peter would later learn that it was _From Eden_ by Hozier. The kitten mewed again; Peter cooed at it and softly brushed his fingers over the top of its head. Then he shifted the kitten into the crook of his elbow, set the milk bottle down on the counter, and slipped his free hand into Sylar’s without fully realizing what he was doing. Sylar’s eyes widened, and, remembering that he didn’t like to be touched without asking, Peter swiftly retracted his hand.

    “I, uh…” He coughed, finding that his throat was suddenly dry. “I’m glad you like my name.”

    Sylar gulped, his eyes darting between Peter's hand and the general direction of his eyes. All the while, the kitten curled deeper into the crook of Peter's arm, making a soft little noise that made his heart melt. Sylar's comment about naming himself after a brand of watch replayed in his mind. It would be kind of cute, actually, to name the kitten after that sort of thing.

    "We could call her Rolex," Peter said, at the same time that Sylar said:

    "You can hold my hand if you want."

    Peter blinked, his heart skipping at least three or four beats. Sylar's cheeks were flushed, and after a second, Peter realized that his were too. He wasn't sure exactly what it would mean if he took Sylar's hand, and he was even less sure of what it meant that Sylar was making the offer. He supposed it would mark the start of something new, although what exactly that would be escaped him at the moment. Then again, maybe it would just be a nice gesture of friendship--because they were friends now, more or less, as strange as it still was to think sometimes. The look in Sylar's eyes, though, told him something different. They were wide with anticipation, fear, excitement, the vulnerability of an unspoken confession that was more likely to be rejected than accepted.

    Looking back on it, Peter wouldn't say that was the moment, or even the day they realized they were falling in love. Sylar may well have known from the beginning, and he didn't entirely figure it out until several weeks later. That moment, though, it was something. A baby step in the direction they'd been headed in since they met.

    "Okay," he said, and their fingers interlaced like two puzzle pieces locking together.

* * *

 

-5 YEARS AGO-

 

    After it was all over, and the world was once again (relatively) safe, Noah found himself as the official legal guardian of his… grandkids? It was hard to say if he could even call the twins that, technically, but they didn't seem to object to the label. That being said, Malina sort of bounced back and forth between him and Angela, and although Tommy was staying under the same roof as him every night, Noah didn't really feel much of a connection between them. He could understand that--the boy had been raised by a completely different set of parents, after all, and now that life was gone. It would probably take him some time to get used to his new life, with the sister he hadn't known about until recently. Noah could respect that. It was just nice to have some young people under his care again to combat his empty nest syndrome.

    One night, as a restless wind swept through the city, Noah was woken up in the middle of the night by a rhythmic bouncing. Rubbing his eyes, he stepped out into the living room and flicked the light on to find Tommy sitting on the arm of the couch, repeatedly tossing a rubber ball against the wall and catching it when it bounced back to him. When Noah walked in, Tommy looked up with an almost apologetic expression. Giving him a gentle smile to assure him that he wasn't in trouble, Noah sat down next to him and put his arm around his shoulders.

    "Having trouble sleeping again?"

    "Yeah," Tommy sighed. "I just keep thinking about Dad. Do you…" He hesitated, voice dropping a few decibels. "D'you think he might still be out there?"

    "That's something I can't be sure of," Noah admitted.

    He liked to think that the master of time and space wouldn't have gone down without a fight, but he had never been particularly optimistic, and he didn't want to get the boy's hopes up. However, the mention of Hiro did bring something else to mind. Whatever happened to that guy who was always hanging around with him? Did he know the real reason for Hiro's sudden disappearance the year before? If not, Noah supposed he deserved to know. After all, the period of time when he hadn't known everything that had happened with Claire and her children absolutely tormented him. As much as learning the truth could hurt, it was better than to be left in the dark about the true fate of a loved one.

    "Tommy, did your dad ever talk about a friend of his?" Noah asked. "...Ando, I believe his name was?"

    "Oh, yeah," said Tommy, recognition dawning in his eyes. "He talked about him all the time. He said he was like… like the Sam to his Frodo, or the Spock to his Kirk."

    "Of course he did," Noah remarked, recalling Hiro's penchant for pop culture references. "Do you know if that man is still around? If he is, don't you think you should go tell him what happened to your dad?"

    Tommy chewed his lip, keeping his gaze on his hands, which he folded in his lap. The clock on the living room wall ticked on, unpaused.

    "What would I even tell him?" he asked. "I don't even know what happened to Dad. I mean, I know he stayed behind to fend off the people who were coming after us, but… he could have made it out, right? Maybe he managed to make it back to his friend. Maybe that's where he is right now."

    Noah didn't say anything in response to that. He could tell from the way Tommy spoke that he didn't entirely believe himself. Sighing, Tommy shook his head and lifted his gaze to meet Noah's eyes. Possibly without even realizing he was doing it, he started bouncing the ball between his hands.

    "Do you know where he lives?" he asked. "Dad's friend, I mean."

    "No, but I'm sure I could manage to track him down," said Noah. "Maybe your sister and I could come with you, if that would make it easier for you."

    Tommy nodded, gulping. "Yeah, that'd be good.”

* * *

 

-3 YEARS AGO-

 

    Tracy drifted from place to place for quite some time, always on the run. She wouldn't call herself public enemy number one, but she was definitely in the top five. She checked in on Noah sometimes, to see how he was holding up, but once the twins were in his life he seemed to perk back up a bit and she decided that he was getting along fine on his own. She kept in touch with Micah whenever she could. When she couldn't, she read the messages he sent her and reminded herself to call him back once she was in an area with wifi. For the first few years, every narrow escape brought her a rush of adrenaline, but eventually, it all blended together into a dull blur of running from the law and from government agents and whoever else was out to get her.

    She was out on the west coast of Canada when she met Shema and Jeff Woodsman. To be more specific, she was emerging from the ocean at sunset and stepping onto a rocky beach as she returned to humanoid form. Taking in a breath of salty seaside air, she looked around and took in her surroundings. The rocky beach stretched on for as far as she could see on either side of her, and past it was a line of birch trees. It didn't seem like anyone else was around--and if they were, it would be easy enough to take care of them without alerting anyone else. Letting out a long sigh of relaxation, Tracy took off her shoes and sat down on the rocks, sticking her legs out in front of her so that the ocean waves rolled against her bare feet. She breathed deeply, in and out, and she closed her eyes against the sinking sun.

    Then she heard someone coming through the woods behind her. Instantly, Tracy got to her feet, ready to freeze whoever was approaching on the spot. The bushes rustled, some twigs snapped, and a couple who looked around the same age as Tracy emerged from the trees. They each wore a backpack that was half as tall as they were. The man wore sunglasses and had his hair in a man-bun, and the tank top he wore showed off a comically pronounced farmer's tan. The woman had a dark complexion; she wore a straw hat with a wide brim, with a few locks of thick, curly dark hair sticking out underneath the hat. When she saw Tracy, she tipped her hat back and blinked in disbelief.

    "Oh! Jeffie, you won't believe this!" she exclaimed. "I know that woman!"

    Before Tracy could retort that they absolutely did not know each other, the woman raced forward, her partner following closely behind. She was suddenly enveloped in a painfully tight embrace, which the woman held for several seconds longer than necessary. When she finally pulled away, she turned to her husband with a grin.

    "Jeffie, you remember Niki Sanders, don't you?" she asked. "Oh, of course you do--she fixed your truck, remember?" Not giving her husband a chance to respond, she turned back to Tracy and clapped her on the shoulder. "How have you been, Niki? Are you still seeing that nice Hawkins fellow?"

    "Erm, actually…" Tracy began.

    Then she stopped herself. If she didn't tell these people that she wasn't Niki, if she let them think she was their old friend, maybe they would let her stay with them for a while. It wouldn't be a permanent solution, obviously, because there really wasn't one, but… it could work, at least for a while.

    "DL and I have separated," she said, recalling the name of Niki's husband from a conversation she'd had with Micah once. "I've just kind of been travelling about, trying to move past it, you know?"

    "Oh, that's nice," the husband said. "Shema and I have been traveling too. This is the first stop on our road trip, actually. We're driving all the way across Canada. We did the States last year, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to give the same treatment to the good old true north strong and free, eh?"

    "Niki, tell me everything that's happened to you," Shema urged. "Oh, we have so much to catch up on!"

    "About that…" Tracy said, putting on the cordial smile of a woman who had just reunited with some old friends of hers. "You don't suppose I could come with you on your cross-country trip, do you?"

    "Oh, absolutely!" Shema said without even a moment's hesitation. "It might be a little cozier than usual in our tent trailer with you aboard, but I'm sure we can manage."

    "Yeah," the husband agreed. "That'd be great."

    And so, Tracy spent the next few weeks travelling across Canada with the Woodsmans. Shema was very easy to get along with, and Tracy found herself very drawn to her loud, contagious laughter. The husband--Jeff--was pretty unremarkable, although Tracy got the impression he didn't think of himself as such. Apparently Jeff was a park ranger at an Ontario campground, and Shema was trying to start an independent business of some sort, although she couldn't make up her mind as to what type of business she wanted to start. During their time on the road together, Tracy inadvertently gained a fairly intimate knowledge of their lives and lifestyle, and she made up an equal amount of information to give them about herself. Slowly but surely, she began to let her guard down around them, and as they crossed the border into Ontario, she realized that she was actually starting to like Shema--a lot. Not enough to admit who she really was, of course, but… she just felt like, maybe, she could sort of get used to this.

    She shouldn't have let her guard down.

    They wound up staying a few nights at the campground where Jeff worked. It was a nice place, or at least one of the better campsites they'd stayed at; there were working comfort stations, some nice scenery and decent-sized campsites, and of course the lake. The beach was lovely, and while the waters often ran a bit cold for many people's tastes, it was the perfect temperature as far as Tracy was concerned. She went swimming with Shema on their first night there while Jeff set up the tent trailer and chopped some firewood. Shema stayed in the water for almost twenty minutes, even though she was squealing about the cold the whole time and she didn't get more than a couple metres out.

    "Agh, Niki, I don't see how you're able to stand in this!" she said with a shudder as she took a tiny, quivering step forward. The water lapped at the top of her legs, and she let out a shriek.

    Tracy tilted her head back and laughed. The water swirled around her, as though it approved of her presence, and while it did send a shiver down her spine when the wind picked up a bit, it was a welcome sort of chill, like a cool drink on a hot day. She kept her arms and legs moving in circular motions to stay afloat and watched from the rope at the edge of the designated swimming area as Shema took another step, then promptly shrieked again and jumped backward.

    "You're not going to get very far that way," Tracy said. "C'mon, it's not that cold."

    "It _is_!" Shema protested. "I feel like I'm going to freeze to death!"

    She shuddered again, not the exaggerated gesture of somebody complaining about the cold, but the tremble of a body whose surroundings were at dangerously low temperatures.

    "Alright," Tracy sighed. "We can go back to the campsite."

    She took a deep breath and plunged under the water, propelling herself forward with a purposeful kick. She shot forward, keeping her eyes open as the water flowed around her, and pushed herself on with a stroke of her arms when she began to slow. After a moment she came up for air, then dunked down again. She repeated the process until her feet scraped against sand, at which point she stood up and waded back out of the lake and onto the beach. Shema was already there, making a beeline for the beach blankets they'd laid out on the sand. Some clouds had rolled over and covered the sun, so it wasn't particularly warm on land, although still not as cold as it was in the water. Chattering her teeth together, Shema pulled the blankets off the sand and wrapped them both around herself. Tracy wrung her hair out and ran her hands up and down her arms a couple times, and she was good to go.

    Back at the campsite, the tent trailer was up and standing, and a fire was crackling in the firepit. Jeff sat next to it, poking at it with a stick. He welcomed them with a smile; Shema rushed inside the trailer to change, but Tracy was content to remain in her bathing suit for a while longer, so she pulled up a camping chair and sat down beside him. The fire brought an admittedly welcome warmth into her body, although she sat a bit farther back than Jeff and kept her distance from the heat. He didn't comment on it; he just kept on prodding at the fire with his stick.

    Tracy shouldn't have let her guard down.

    "You know," Jeff said without glancing up from the fire, "I met Shema at this campsite. I was driving through on patrol, on one of those little vehicles us park rangers ride in, y'know? And she ran right out in front of me because there was a squirrel in my path and she thought I was going to hit it. I wouldn't have hit it, of course--I saw the critter coming, and I had plenty of time to stop. I damn near hit her, though. So I got out of my vehicle and I chewed her out, but she was so damn cute I couldn't really be mad. I saw her around a few more times, and eventually I asked her out."

    "That's lovely," Tracy said, and she meant it. "Honestly, I'm a little envious of you."

    "Say, that reminds me," Jeff said, turning to face Tracy. "You and DL had a kid, didn't you? You should give him a call sometime."

    Tracy nodded slowly. Internally, she berated herself, because just for a moment she had forgotten that the Woodsmans still thought she was Niki. His suggestion about calling Micah, though, was one she wouldn't have minded taking him up on. Maybe she could call Noah, too, just to let him know she was okay.

    "There's cell reception up at the visitor centre," he went on. "You can borrow my phone if you like, give your boy a call. How's that sound?"

    "It sounds…" Despite everything, Tracy smiled at the thought of contacting her nephew. She hadn't gotten any messages from him in a while--not that she was worried about him, because he could take care of himself, but she admittedly kind of missed him. "Great. It sounds great."

    The next day, she made two phone calls. The first was to Micah. He asked her how she was doing, and she told him about the Woodsmans, to which he laughed and replied that it sounded like a pretty crazy predicament she'd gotten herself into.

    "I'd be careful if I were you, Aunt Tracy," he warned, the amusement in his voice quickly giving way to a serious tone. "Things could go really bad for you if they find out."

    "Don't worry, I'll be careful," she assured him. "What about you? What have you been getting up to?"

    "Oh, nothing much," he said. "I'm kind of taking a break from all that 'Hero Truther' stuff, though. Mostly I've been helping to organize rallies and protests and stuff."

    "Wow," Tracy said, her chest swelling with pride for her accomplished young nephew. "That sounds very--"

    She broke off as the muffled sound of gunshots rang out from the phone. Micah cursed loudly.

    "Sorry, Aunt Tracy, I've gotta go," he said. "I'll call you back later, okay?"

    The call ended with a click. Panic spiking in her gut, Tracy sucked in a breath, staring at the "call ended" screen. Then she breathed out and typed in another phone number--Noah's. She pressed the call button and waited with bated breath for him to pick up. The phone rang once, twice… three, four, five times, and then--

    " _Hello,"_ a mechanical voice said. " _You have reached:_ Noah Bennet. _Please leave a message after the tone."_

    "Hey, Noah,” she said once the phone beeped. “I just wanted to let you know that I'm not on the run anymore. There are these old friends of Niki Sanders who never found out she died, and I’m kind of… well, I’m staying with them and kind of pretending to be Niki. I know, I know, but don’t pretend it’s worse than any of the crap you’ve done. Anyway, talk to you later, I hope. Bye.”

    She ended the call, tucked the phone in her pocket, and turned to leave, only to stop in her tracks when she saw Shema standing in the door of the visitor centre, staring at her. Her jaw hung slightly open, and her eyes seemed to stare right through her. Heart dropping into the pit of her stomach, Tracy forced her lips into the curve of an innocent smile and prayed that he hadn't heard her message.

    "Hi, Shema," she said. "I'm finished making my call."

    Shema blinked, and then she smiled too. It looked just a little too wide, and it didn't even come close to reaching her eyes, but Tracy wanted to believe that it was genuine, that she hadn't overheard, that her secret was still safe. And so she believed her when she announced that she was going to head back to the campsite and cook supper.

    "You can hang around the visitor centre if you like, though," she said, gesturing to the park merch and tourism information boards decorating the shelves. "See you in a bit… Niki."

    Tracy shouldn't have let her guard down. But she did.

    When she got back to the campsite, Shema was cooking a steak on the portable grill. It smelled great--her cooking always did. Jeff's, not so much. She glanced up at Tracy with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

    "I think Jeffie needs your help with something in the trailer," Shema said as she drizzled some barbecue sauce onto the sizzling steak. "Why don't you go see about that?"

    Naturally, Tracy was a bit suspicious--but just a bit. She rationalized that, even if Shema had overheard the phone message she'd left, and relayed the information to her husband, she still wouldn't be in any danger. Maybe Jeff would turn on her if he found out the truth, but surely Shema wouldn't. She liked Tracy, didn't she?

    With a furtive glance over her shoulder, Tracy kicked off her shoes and stepped inside the tent trailer.

    She heard the knife plunge into her chest before she felt it. It made a horrible sort of _schlick_ noise, and all of a sudden, the scent of blood tinged the air. Tracy gasped, fixing her gaze on Jeff, who stared back at her with wild, unflinching eyes. His teeth were gritted, and he gripped the handle of a knife with white knuckles--the very same knife that was now buried in Tracy's chest. And now she could feel the pain. It came hard and fast, in a sharp, overwhelming burst, and Tracy realized with a pang of dread that it was a fatal wound. Jeff pushed on the handle of the knife, and it slid in a couple centimetres deeper. Then he twisted it. Tracy screamed as pain coursed through her, strong enough to make her nearly black out. Blood trickled from her body and onto the floor, staining the interior of the tent trailer, and Tracy felt it bubbling up into her throat as well. A trickle of blood spilled from her lips when she opened them to speak, and she found herself unable to get any words out.

    "Now, I don't know who you are," Jeff hissed. "But I know that you're not Niki Sanders. So, who the hell are you?"

    Tracy swallowed back the blood and bile and tried to speak, but all that came out was a low gurgle. Behind her, she heard Shema yell. In front of her, Jeff's form blurred in and out of focus. She was dying, and she knew that she had only a matter of seconds left. _Not today,_ she thought. Closing her eyes, she thought of water, flowing loose and free and painless, and then she became it. The knife in her chest turned to water as well; Jeff let go of the handle with a yelp as it liquified and merged into Tracy's form.

    As Tracy dissolved into water, she fell backwards out of the tent trailer and splashed into a container. Above her, she got a flash of Jeff sneering down at her before he slammed something down on top of her with a loud clang. Tracy sloshed around in indignation; from outside whatever container Jeff had trapped her in--it smelled metallic, so probably a cooking pot--she could hear him talking with Shema, although she couldn't hear what they were saying. They both sounded angry. Then the container she was in got jostled around, and the next thing she knew, Shema grabbed her and started running, holding the lid tight over the pot. She could hear Jeff shouting after her; Shema picked up the pace and ran faster.

    A short time later, although it could have been anywhere between a minute and half an hour, the lid opened and she was spilled out into the lake. She looked up and saw Shema kneeling down at the water's surface, eyes wide and apologetic.

    "I didn't know he was going to do that, Niki, I swear," she said. "Or… no, you're not Niki, are you?"

    "I'm not," Tracy confirmed. She was surprised that she was able to speak in her current state, although her voice felt and sounded very different than usual coming out.

    Shema stared down at the surface of the lake, lips pursed. For a moment, Tracy was sure that she was going to condemn her husband and pledge to find a way to help Tracy out. But then she simply shook her head, got up, and ran away.

    As she watched Shema leave, Tracy had half a mind to come out of the water and follow her. In fact, she tried to. However, as soon as her human form began to take shape, the knife rematerialized. Letting out a guttural scream, she turned back to water and fell into the lake, sending out a shuddering ripple through the icy waters.

    What stung the most was that the Woodsmans hadn't betrayed her, not really. She'd been the one betraying their trust from the beginning. If anything, she was getting what she deserved. That being said… if Jeff Woodsman ever set foot in the water, she would make him pay for doing this to her. Tracy knew that she wasn't in the right, but neither were the Woodsmans, and she was not a very forgiving person.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's had an exciting few days, but in the aftermath of a close encounter, secrets are unveiled and new mysteries arise. Sylar sets out to find his boyfriend. Malina makes a mysterious new acquaintance. Peter learns the awful truth.

    Sylar paced back and forth through the cottage, crumpling Peter's note in his hands. It was eight hours since Rolex had gone missing, and although Peter's note had promised that he would be back soon, he still hadn't returned. Worry clawed at Sylar's chest, for both his boyfriend and their cat. He tried not to jump to the worst possible conclusions, but with every second that ticked by, the worst conclusions seemed the most likely.

    It was possible that some complications had arisen at the vet, but it was also possible that something else had happened. Sylar recalled Peter's increasingly frequent requests to go into town, and how he had broken down on their last trip out of misery over being separated from his friends and family. Could he have taken the opportunity to leave Sylar behind and go back to New York? Sylar didn't want to believe that was the case, but when everybody else he had ever known in his life had turned on him, why should Peter be any different? He'd thought Peter was different, he really had, and he still wanted to, but if the evidence pointed to the contrary…

    "Well, I guess I'll just have to find out for myself," Sylar muttered aloud.

    Tucking the crumpled note into his back pocket, he headed out the door. As he walked, he shapeshifted into as generic a man as possible so as not to draw any attention. Then he coiled his muscles and propelled himself upwards into the twilight sky. The wind rushed around him as he flew, and he directed himself toward a thermal to get him to Atikokan faster. Once he made it there, he headed directly for the animal hospital. There was a "closed" sign on the door, but Sylar telekinetically pushed the door open and marched in. Once inside, he approached a vet who was gathering up her supplies and getting ready to leave.

    "Excuse me," he said. "Did somebody come in here with an injured cat named Rolex earlier today?"

    The vet blinked at him, eyes wide, then slowly nodded.

    "Y-yes, he did," she said. "He called himself Cliff Stanford--do you know him?"

    Despite the dire situation, Sylar had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the pseudonym. "I know him," he said. "He's my… let's say my friend. What happened to the cat?" he pressed. "Is she okay?"

    "She will be once Dr. Gill operates on her tomorrow," the vet said. She glanced Sylar up and down like she was trying to figure out what he was up to. "Now, if you don't mind, do you think you could get out of here? We're closed."

    "What happened to--to 'Cliff' once he left?" Sylar asked, ignoring her request. He could leave once he knew where Peter had gone. "Did he say where he was going?"

    "Dr. Gill said he was leaving to get money to pay for the operation." The vet narrowed her eyes. "Now, Sir, _please_ get out of here before I call the police."

    "That won't be necessary," Sylar assured her. "Thank you for your help."

    He turned on his heel and left the vet's office. Getting money would either mean going back to the cottage (which obviously hadn't happened) or going to the bank to withdraw money from the Petrelli family bank account. The bank was just a few blocks down from the vet, and as Sylar approached it, he saw yellow construction tape set up around the door and the surrounding sidewalk. Heart speeding up, Sylar picked up his pace until he practically broke into a run. Pushing through the tape like it was nothing, he came to a halt on the sidewalk outside the bank. There, covering the pavement and pooling down the curb into the gutter, was a pile of half-dried blood.

    "No," Sylar hissed.

    He ran into the bank, practically ripping the door off its hinges as he did so, and retrieved the bank card from under the machine. With trembling fingers, he punched in the passcode and selected the option to view his balance. Sure enough, two hundred dollars had been withdrawn since their last trip to the bank. Peter had definitely been there--and he hadn't come back, and now there was a pile of blood on the sidewalk.

    A car pulled up outside the bank and a woman hopped out who looked the same as, and yet also distinctively different than Tracy. Sylar's head snapped up and he turned to fix her with a glare as she slammed the car door behind her. She looked at him, then down at the blood on the sidewalk, and scrambled back inside her car. That was all the confirmation Sylar needed that she knew what had happened there.

    He extended a hand and froze the car in place, then dragged it across the street to him. Screaming, the woman jumped out of the car and started running down the street. Scowling, Sylar tugged her through the air over to him and set her down firmly, right in the middle of the blood on the sidewalk. She shrieked and took a swipe at him with fingernails which glinted in an unnatural purple hue, but before she could nick him, he closed his hand into a fist, holding her in place.

    "What happened here?" he demanded. "What did you do to Peter?"

    "I don't know!" the woman cried. Sylar's head tingled, alerting him to the fact she was lying, and he put the tiniest bit of pressure on her throat. "Gah! I--I didn't do anything wrong, you filthy evo! I'm just trying to keep Atikokan safe from freaks like you!"

    A growl rose in Sylar's throat and he tightened his grip on her throat. She let out a strangled gasp, and Sylar felt a rush of twisted satisfaction. A faint twinge of hunger tugged at the back of his mind, and his fingers twitched, itching to slice her head open. He suppressed the urge, reminding himself that if he killed her before she told him what she'd done, he would have no way of knowing Peter's fate. And, besides, he didn’t kill people anymore.

    "Here's a suggestion," he said with mock sweetness. "Instead of keeping Atikokan safe, why not keep _yourself_ safe from _me_ by telling me what you did with Peter?"

    The woman whimpered, squirming in Sylar's telekinetic grip. Her fishnet stockings were wet, as though she had been wading, or maybe sitting in a canoe or kayak with water pooled in the bottom. A couple drops of purple liquid dripped from her fingernails and blended into the pile of blood.

     "I killed him!" she blurted. "I killed him, okay? And I'll kill you too if you don't back off!"

    A rush of searing anger shot through Sylar, clouding his vision red. He flung the woman into the road, her terrified scream quickly cut off as she slammed up against her car. Her head connected with the window and it shattered in a spray of blood-soaked glass.

    "Kill me?" he repeated incredulously. "Who do think you are?"

    The woman didn't respond. She slumped over, limp, and dawning horror washed over Sylar as he realized just how hard he had thrown her, and that without healing powers, the human body wasn't equipped to slam up against a car window. Shards of glass stuck out of the back of her head like a crown of thorns, and the metal frame of the vehicle was dented where her body had collided with it. Blood rushed in Sylar's ears as he thoroughly took in the grisly scene. For the first time in years, he had just killed somebody.

    A truck rounded the corner and screeched to a halt, its horn grating against Sylar's ears. Without thinking, he shot a lightning bolt at the truck's tires, sending them up in smoke. The hunger tugged at him again, stronger this time, and he screamed, falling to his knees and clawing at his head. The bloodstained sidewalk seemed to swim around him, and although it was already well into drying, its stench permeated his senses. All this blood, some of it on his hands, most of it not, but that didn't matter. He should have been there, should have known something was wrong, and he could have gotten there in time to protect his boyfriend. Now Peter's blood was covering the sidewalk, and his killer was slumped lifelessly against her car.

    Slowly, Sylar's anguish settled into a miasma of somewhat rational thought. If Peter had stayed down, there was probably something jammed in his head--but, by the looks of it, his head couldn’t have been severed or destroyed completely. There was blood on the sidewalk--so much blood--but no gore, no brain splatter. If he could find Peter's body and get whatever was in his head out of there, his healing powers would kick in and he would be fine. The only problem now was finding him.

    Drawing in a shaky breath, Sylar stood up and telekinetically moved the woman's car over to the side of the road so that it wouldn't block traffic. He wasn't sure what to do with her body, exactly, but… it would have to go too, clearly. It wasn't the kind of thing you could just leave sitting out where people could find it. Sylar walked over to where she lay sprawled on the pavement, picked her up, and carried her over to her car. He then laid her inside the driver's seat, tipped the car over, and positioned it in front of a telephone pole. He hoped that whoever found it would think that it had been a simple car crash--tragic, but with no malicious intent.

    In the meantime, he had to turn his attention to tracking Peter down. With no real leads to go on, the best thing he could think of was getting in touch with someone who knew Peter, and who had an ability that could be useful in predicting things. That decided it, then. He would call Angela.

    (He only wished the circumstances could have been better, but that woman barely tolerated him at the best of times anyway.)

* * *

 

    The day after her strange conversation with Noah, Malina woke up half-expecting to find somebody sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed. There was nobody there, though, because there never had been, right? She didn't have a roommate, let alone a _sibling._ She would remember if she did. (Why did she have a bunk bed in her dorm room? She couldn't remember, and when she tried to recall the reason, it felt like her head was full of static.) She considered calling Angela and telling her about what Noah had said, but decided against it. Hadn't her life already been weird enough up to that point? The last thing she wanted was to get tangled up in another series of bizarre happenings.

    She didn't have any classes that morning, and it was too cold to go for a jog; the fall winds were beginning to blow, and a chill dampness hung in the air. For a few minutes, she tried to get back to sleep, but her mind was too restless. It kept dredging up these blurry flashes, half-memories, of a boy her age who looked like her. After a while, she decided to clear her thoughts by going to the library to work on one of her nearly-due assignments.

    When she got down to the library, she was the only one there save for a young, somewhat gaunt woman with mousy-brown hair, who was sitting at a table with an array of maps and notebooks spread out in front of her. When Malina walked in, the woman glanced up at her briefly with wide, fearful eyes. Then her gaze flitted back down to one of her notebooks. She tapped a pen against the table, chewed on its end, and then leaned forward and circled something on one of her maps.

    Curiosity tugged at Malina and beckoned her over to sit down across from the strange woman. Slowly, watching to see if the other woman would react at all, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and inserted her memory stick. The woman didn't pay her any mind. Shrugging to herself, Malina opened a word document and loaded up the meteorology essay she was writing. She was supposed to conduct a study on weather trends. The irony of this assignment wasn't lost on her; the professor, who knew full well about her ability, had made a couple cajoling remarks about it when explaining the curriculum. _"Now, some of you may be tempted to enact your own influences on the weather,"_ he'd said with a meaningful glance at where Malina sat toward the front of the lecture hall. _"Please refrain from doing that for this study--although you're welcome to summon up an aurora on your own time."_ Malina kind of wished her meteorology professor would just get off her case about that whole thing.

     _Weather patterns,_ she thought to herself, skimming over what she'd already written and thinking very hard about what the professor had put in the curriculum. _Weather patterns. Weather patterns…_ Biting her lip, she drummed her fingers on the keyboard without actually putting any words down. Her mind kept darting back to the woman sitting across from her. Who _was_ she? Obviously UCLA was a pretty big school, but Malina knew for certain that she had never seen that woman before, not even in passing in the hallway. She didn't quite look like she belonged--not just at the university, but anywhere. She looked sort of lost and confused.

    "Hey," Malina asked quietly after a few minutes; the other woman flinched when she spoke. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

    "No, I'm okay," the woman mumbled. "I'm just looking for somebody."

    "Who are you looking for? I might be able to help."

    "No…" She bit her lip and shook her head. "No, I don't think you can. But thanks for offering."

    A few more minutes of somewhat awkward silence passed, during which Malina managed to type exactly two sentences about outlying occurrences in terms of cloud coverage. The other woman kept looking back and forth between her maps and flipping through her notes, occasionally stopping to write something down. Her brow was furrowed in concentration. _Weather patterns, weather patterns…_ Gradually, Malina grew increasingly aware of the low hum of her laptop, the muted chatter of people passing by in the halls outside, the ticking of the clock. It stuck in her brain, diverting her concentration further and further away from her assignment.

    Eventually, her curiosity got the better of her. She saved her work and closed her laptop, putting it back in her bag, then got up and moved over to sit beside the other woman.

    "Hey, uh, what's your name?" she asked. "I'm Malina."

    "Oh! Um, I…" She drummed her pen against the desk, chewing on her bottom lip. "I think… I think it was Park--uh, Parker?"

    "You… _think_?"

    "Yeah. I, um, don't really know…" she mumbled, gaze dropping. "But that sounds sort of right, when I say it aloud. I just… there's a lot about myself I don't know right now."

    "I kind of feel that way right now, too," Malina admitted.

    She thought back to her years of isolating herself and training to perfect her power, unsure of who she wanted to be and what her purpose was. Somewhere along the way she must have found it, but now, everything after a certain point a few years ago was fuzzy and dotted with blotches of static. Her more recent memories were missing a vital component, and she felt like she knew what that component was, but every time she stopped to try to think about it, her mind refused to cooperate.

    "Are you looking for somebody too?" Parker asked. "If you are, I might be able to help you find them."

    For a moment, Malina hesitated. She considered asking about… what was the name Noah had said? " _Tommy_ "? But if she asked, and she actually got an answer, that would mean that she really did have a brother she had forgotten about. And that would mean something was _wrong_ with her. Discomfort stirred in her gut as she reflected on the fuzzy feeling that kept popping up in her brain. Maybe something _was_ wrong with her, but if so, she would figure it out on her own time. She didn't need to drag this stranger into it.

    "No, I'm not looking for anyone," she said. "Are you?"

    "I'm looking for my dad, I think," Parker said. "The only problem is, I can't remember who he is. I just remember him being strong and brave and really nice to me. I really… I really don't remember anything else, at all."

    "At all?" Malina echoed. "How far back can you remember, then? And what's all that stuff you've got written down there?"

    She gestured toward the notebooks. Over Parker's shoulder, she could just make out a bulleted list, written in small and tidy handwriting. Parker hunched her shoulders and pulled the notebook in closer to her.

    "That stuff is personal," she said. "It's mostly journal entries. I wrote the first one on the day I woke up."

    Malina was about to ask more--what Parker meant by "the day she woke up"; if she remembered anything from before that; where she had woken up; why she had decided to come to UCLA of all places--but before she got the chance, the library doors swung open and a small gaggle of other students walked inside. Parker looked up at them, then back at Malina, and raised her finger to her lips in a hushing gesture.

    "I can't tell you any more now," she whispered. "I don't want them to hear me. But can you meet me here again tonight? I'll explain everything I know about myself."

    Malina nodded, despite the growing feeling in the back of her head that she was about to get pulled into something much larger than herself. The cogs in her mind were spinning rapidly as she picked up her bag and went to leave. Between her own apparent missing memories and a strange woman with barely any memories at all, it looked like Malina's meteorology essay was going to have to wait.

* * *

 

    When he went into work the day after his conversation with Malina, Noah approached his manager to ask about taking some time off.

    "There's a family emergency I'm dealing with," he said, and he spun a mental roulette wheel to land on an appropriate relative and medical concern. "My… brother-in-law had a heart attack last week. It's really tearing my wife apart."

    "I'm sorry to hear that, Bennet," his manager said. She took out a clipboard and a little golf pencil and scribbled something down. "How are you holding up?"

    "Well, it's… it's hard seeing my wife so torn up, mostly," Noah said. As rusty as they were, his old liar instincts kicked in, and he summoned up a flawless beleaguered sigh. "To be honest, Greg and I were never really that close. He was a decent guy, though. Our kids loved him."

    The manager nodded in understanding. She tapped her pencil against the clipboard and blinked at Noah expectantly.

    "About how much time do you want off?" she asked.

    "Oh, from tomorrow until the thirtieth should be good," he said. Just in case asking for that much time off was pushing it, he stared into the store's fluorescent light for a moment so his eyes watered up, then took his glasses off and rubbed them on his shirt so that the manager could see the tears forming in his eyes. "I just really want to give my wife the support she deserves during this difficult time."

    "I see," said the manager. "Well, you have my permission to take as much time as you need. I wish you and your family well, Mr. Bennet."

    Immediately upon getting home from work that day, Noah dug out a suitcase and started packing. There wasn't very much in his apartment to pack in the first place--some clothes and a few toiletries, his wallet and phone, a travel mug Claire had bought for him over a decade ago which had once read "#1 dad" but was now almost completely faded from countless trips through the dishwasher. He packed the latter item with special care, wrapping it up in paper towel before tucking it gently between two folded-up shirts. Then he left his apartment, taking care to lock the door behind him, and headed down to the parking lot. He put the suitcase in the backseat of his car and climbed inside. Before taking off, he checked his glove compartment to make sure his gun was there. Seeing it sitting there, gleaming slightly in the dim evening light, put a twisting feeling in his chest. He had tried, so many times now, to put the days of using that weapon behind him. But as long as people kept targeting him and his family, he could never truly escape his dark past.

    Provided that he didn’t get held up in traffic too many times and that the weather cooperated, it would take him about a week to get to UCLA. He considered calling Malina ahead of time to tell her he was coming, but decided against it. After their last conversation, she probably thought he was downright insane. The first thing he would do when he got to the university would be to look for Tommy. Whether or not Tommy was still present would seriously impact the next step of Noah’s investigation. Additionally, he planned to ask around to see if anybody else there remembered him. If Malina’s memory was the only one affected, then the culprit had done a sloppy job. If he wasn’t there, and had been erased from everyone’s collective memory…

    Noah’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. He wasn’t sure what it would mean, exactly, but he was determined to find out.

* * *

 

    A cacophony of cheers erupted from the TV as the football player on the screen made a touchdown. At least, Ji Woo assumed he'd just made a touchdown--she had no idea how football worked, and after her third can of beer that afternoon, her mind was getting a little fuzzy. Beside her, Bruce cheered along with the onscreen audience, waving an empty, crumpled beer can in the air like a flag. With his free hand, he looped an arm around Ji Woo's shoulder and pulled her into a highly unwelcome side-hug. Groaning, Ji Woo lifted his arm off of her and slid over to the edge of the couch, putting as much space between them as she could. Bruce, who apparently couldn't take a hint to save his life, reached over and grabbed her arm.

    "Hey, piss off," she hissed, shrugging him off.

    "Aw, come on, Woo-woo," he said, batting his eyes at her with his stupid sappy hippie smile. "Why not share the love a little?"

    "'Cause I don't love you."

    Before he could reply with "you do~" or something equally insipid (and untrue) Ji Woo's phone screen lit up, catching her eye from where it was plugged in to charge across the room. As she got up to unplug it, the phone started playing the annoyingly catchy synth pop tune its former owner had set the ringtone to.

     _"I try to call you everyday, I'm rehearsing what to say when the truth comes out (of my very own mouth)..."_

    "Hello?" Ji Woo answered the phone, cutting the ringtone off before that damn song could get stuck in her head yet again. "Who is this?"

    "Er, hi, this is Kimiko."

    Ji Woo nearly dropped the phone out of her hand. From his vantage point on the couch, Bruce looked over at her and raised his eyebrows; cheeks heating up, she made a shushing gesture and turned her back on him.

    "Ohh, hi, Kimiko," she said slowly, trying to figure out why she had picked now of all times to finally call back, and trying to remember what persona she'd put up on their date. "It's great to hear from you again! How have you been?"

    Kimiko laughed humorlessly. "Not very good, honestly," she said. "My brother-in-law keeps being reckless. He says it's what my brother would have wanted, but…"

    "What do you think your brother would have wanted?" Ji Woo asked.

    (She knew exactly who Kimiko's brother was, in the sense that she knew what his power had been and some of the important things he'd done. However, she legitimately had no clue what kind of person he'd been--and, she realized with a pang of startlement, she wouldn't be opposed to finding out.)

    "I think he would have wanted us to be happy, more than anything," Kimiko said. "That's… ahem." She cleared her throat, and Ji Woo got the mental image of a faint blush creeping into her cheeks, although maybe that was wishful thinking. "That's why I decided you call you. I was thinking how I haven't been giving relationships enough of a chance recently, and how Hiro would have wanted me to… well, I can't say if he would have liked you specifically, but I think I do, so… how about dinner tomorrow night?"

    Ji Woo's heart sped up until it was going about a mile a minute. She glanced over her shoulder at Bruce, who was observing her with a bemused and oddly proud smile; he gave her a thumbs up.

    "Yeah, sure, that sounds great," Ji Woo replied, cringing at the way her voice came out. "Should we go back to that same restaurant?"

    "Sounds good to me. Is seven okay?"

    "I don't see why not."

    "Great," Kimiko said, and suddenly Ji Woo found herself grinning like some ridiculous schoolgirl. "I'll see you then. Goodbye for now!"

    "Bye!"

    As she ended the call, a rush of giddy anticipation flowed over her, nearly as strong as the one she'd gotten upon first coming up with her and Bruce's plan. Her mind whirled, not with possibilities for tying this development into said plan, but rather with sheer excitement over going on a date. It wasn't that she was head-over-heels for Kimiko or anything--that would've been stupid; she barely knew the woman. She just didn't get out as much as she could have, and going on a date with a pretty lady was always a fun time. Plus, it could finally give her a chance to advance the plan. To be honest, after their first date had been such a dead end, she'd nearly given up.

    "So…" Bruce said as Ji Woo sat back down next to him.

    He wriggled his eyebrows up and down, making kissy faces. She elbowed him in the gut, and got more than a bit of satisfaction from seeing him wince in pain.

    "Look, O'Brien, I put up with a lot from you," she said sharply. "Don't you say a fucking word about this, or I _will_ end your life."

    "Alright, alright," Bruce muttered. "I was just gonna say, you'd better not tell her that we're planning to kidnap her brother-in-law."

    "Obviously I'm not gonna tell her that, idiot. How much of an amateur do you think I am?!"

    "I dunno," he said. "Love can mess with your head, is all."

    Ji Woo harrumphed loudly and sat back with her arms crossed. Bruce dropped the subject and turned his attention back to the sports game on the TV.

* * *

 

    When Angela's phone rang, she was watching the news, keeping a close eye out for any buildings with hallways like the one in her dreams. She hadn't been expecting any calls, so at first she assumed it would be Noah again, for lack of anyone else it possibly could have been. She turned the volume on the TV down and answered the call without checking to see the caller ID. When she heard the voice on the other end, her blood ran cold.

    "Hello, Angela. Do you have a moment?"

    "Not to talk to you, I don't," she snapped. "Why the hell are you calling, Sylar?"

    "It's about your son," he said. "Something's happened to him. He's been… incapacitated."

    Heart clenching, Angela gritted her teeth and tried not to let any fear creep into her voice.

    "I don't think I have any reason to believe you," she hissed. "Especially not when considering what you did to my other son."

    (She didn't _want_ to believe him, certainly. Never mind the worrisome dreams she'd been having about Peter recently. She refused to believe that they were prophetic.)

    “Angela, I realize we haven’t always gotten along--”

    “Damn well we haven’t; you _killed my son_!”

    “--But we both care about Peter, and I wouldn’t lie about something like this,” Sylar continued, irritation creeping into his voice. “Something’s happened to him, and I need your help finding him.”

    Despite her anger at him having the _nerve_ to call her, something about his voice made Angela stop and listen to what he was saying. He sounded urgent, genuinely so, and he lacked any trace of that sadistic tone she had come to hate with every fibre of her being. A chill ran down Angela’s spine, and she tightened her grip on her phone as she realized that he was quite likely telling the truth.

    “Fine,” she said quietly, doing everything in her power to keep her voice from wavering even as a knot of apprehension formed in her gut. “What do you propose I do about it?”

    “Well, have you had any dreams about him lately?” he asked. “Or any dreams at all that could be relevant? Maybe… anything about a woman who looks like Tracy?”

    Angela thought back to the dreams she’d had over the past few months. Aside from the troubling ones she had relayed to Noah, there really hadn’t been anything too specific. Most of her dreams, in fact, had been frustratingly vague; she wondered if her powers were losing their edge with age. Peter had cropped up a few times, and she’d often woken up with the vague sense that he was in peril, but no details as to how exactly. She had seen blood a couple of times--blood in the water, once. And… no, she didn’t remember seeing Tracy, but she thought she might have heard her voice once or twice--although what she had been saying completely eluded her. She relayed this information to Sylar, who hummed thoughtfully as she told him.

    “I wonder if she threw the body in a lake,” he mused.

    At that, Angela froze in place, breath catching in her throat. It felt as though her blood had turned to ice.

    “What did you just say?” she hissed. Sylar didn’t reply. “Did you say _body_?”

    “Relax, Angela,” he said after a few seconds crept by. “He has my power, which includes healing. Or even if he doesn’t have my power anymore, I can give him a blood transfusion--or Claire can, maybe. How is she doing, by the way? Peter’s been missing her.”

    “Don’t try to change the subject,” Angela snapped. “Do you know who did this to him? I’ll--” Despite her best efforts to stay composed, her voice wavered as she clutched at the phone with white knuckles. “I’ll deal with them, if you can tell me who did it.”

    Sylar was silent for a moment; when he spoke up again, he sounded weary.

    “I’m afraid I already got that job done for you.”

    “Oh.” Well, she didn’t know what else she had expected from him, anyway. Clearing her throat, Angela straightened her posture even though she knew he couldn’t see her over the phone line. “I see.”

    “Anyway, thank you for the help,” he said. “Say hi to Claire for me, will you?”

    “Believe me, Sylar,” Angela said, before she could stop herself and think about the repercussions, “I wish I could.”

    “...You… what?” Something rose in Sylar’s voice--something vaguely accusatory. Angela flinched, internally berating herself. “You would have told Peter if something had happened to Claire, wouldn’t you? You know how much he loves her.”

    “Right, yes, of course,” she said quickly. “I’ll be sure to tell her that he wishes her well.”

    “No, I don’t think you will,” he said slowly, and _now_ she could hear that old predatory tone, like a fox stalking its prey. “Something happened to her, didn’t it? And you didn’t tell him.”

    “I couldn’t tell him, damn it!” she barked, wincing as her voice cracked. “No contact with me, or anybody else--that was what we agreed upon! Of course I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t; it would endanger him!”

    As she was speaking, Sylar suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.

    “Oh, shit,” he muttered.

    On the other end of the line, a muffled voice spoke up--one that Angela recognized in an instant. Sylar shouted something she couldn’t quite make out, and she heard Peter shout something back. Although his voice was distant--he must have been standing a good distance away from the telephone--she could tell he was upset. Remorse tugged hard and sharp at her heart, and tears welled up in her eyes as she listened to their muffled conversation. There was the sound of shuffling feet, and then--

    “Ma,” Peter said, his voice thick with emotions. “What… what’s happened while I’ve been gone?”

    Angela raised her hand to her mouth to muffle a sob. She had to maintain her dignity, damn it, she couldn’t let herself get so compromised, _damn it_ … She sucked in a shaky breath and spoke in the most composed voice she could manage,

    “Why, nothing of concern, sweetie,” she lied. “Claire is fine, I promise. Everyone is fine.”

    Peter hesitated for a moment, and then spoke again, his own voice trembling just as she was desperately trying to prevent hers from doing.

    “I don’t believe you.”

* * *

 

    Peter had, against all odds, flown back into town in a good mood. Seeing one of his friends again after so long had positively elated him, although his heart was still heavy with sympathy for her current condition. On his way back to Atikokan, he had tried thinking of ways to help her get back to normal. Maybe he could take her to a hospital and give her a transfusion of his or Sylar’s blood, assuming their blood types were compatible. If not, they would have to work something else out…

    As he had touched down outside the animal hospital, he had found that the money he’d withdrawn from the bank was gone, so he’d gone back to the bank to get more. However, upon arriving at the street the bank was on, he’d been horrified to discover police tape blocking off the bank and its surrounding area. Pushed up against a traffic pole was a thoroughly damaged car, with blood spatter across its dented door. There was an ambulance parked nearby, and Peter caught a glimpse of a couple paramedics lifting somebody onto a stretcher. Although it was clearly meant to look like a crash, Peter knew in an instant what--or rather, who--had really been responsible, and the knowledge made his blood run cold. The way the metal of the car was twisted in certain parts could only have been the work of Sylar. But why would Sylar do that? He had _changed_ ; Peter had seen that change firsthand. For years now, Sylar had been… not perfect, because nobody was, but certainly not a killer anymore. He was sweeter and softer now; gentle--loving. Peter had experienced that love, had given it in return, and now…?

    (He didn’t get a good enough look at the person on the stretcher to determine who it was, whether they were still alive… or if their head had been sliced open. He prayed to god that it wasn’t.)

    His mind had spun as he had bolted away from the crime scene as fast as possible. One thought echoed in his mind: _I have to find Sylar._ If he could find his boyfriend and ask him what had happened, surely he would have a good explanation. Surely he hadn’t reverted to his old ways just like that. Surely, surely, surely…

    He had found Sylar quickly enough, standing at as payphone a few blocks away. He wore his own face, apparently not seeing the need to disguise himself, and he spoke into the phone with an edge to his voice that sent a chill down Peter’s spine. Then, as he came closer, he made out what his boyfriend was saying:

    “You would have told Peter if something had happened to Claire, wouldn’t you? You know how much he loves her.”

    His words hit Peter like a hammer to the ribcage. Peter stood still, feet rooted to the ground, as Sylar silently listened to the response of whoever he was talking to. Then Sylar spoke again, the beginnings of a snarl edging into his voice.

    “No, I don’t think you will. Something happened to her, didn’t it? And you didn’t tell him.”

    “S-Sylar?” Peter whispered.

    Sylar froze, his head snapping around. He locked eyes with Peter and swore under his breath. Still clutching the payphone, he took a step toward Peter. Peter took a step back. Sylar lowered the phone from his ear and took another couple of steps forward. His mouth moved, and it looked like he was whispering an apology, but all Peter could hear was the blood rushing in his ears and the words _“something happened to her”_ on repeat. Throat clenching, he shook his head in wide-eyed disbelief. Sylar had guessed wrong, surely, or else the person on the other end of the line was lying. Nothing could have happened to Claire--she had healing powers. She was indestructible! Something wet pricked at Peter’s eyes, and he realized that he was crying.

    “Peter, please, don’t look at me like that,” Sylar said. “Your mother is the one who decided not to tell you that--”

    “That…? That what?” Peter’s voice rose, and it felt as if his chest would burst with dread. “What happened to Claire? She’s okay, isn’t she?!”

    “I don’t know what happened to her,” Sylar told him, holding the phone out in Peter’s direction. “But I think your mother does. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

    “No, I… nothing happened, right? She’s fine. She has to be fine!”

    Sylar held his gaze for a long moment, not saying anything. Sorrow and something like pity filled his eyes. Then he gave his head a slight shake. He gestured, beckoning Peter over to him, and Peter complied. Gently, tenderly, Sylar pressed the payphone into his hand.

    “Go on,” he murmured. “Ask her yourself.”

    And so Peter did. And as he heard his mother’s voice for the first time in years, he wanted with every fibre of his being to believe her when she said that everything, that every _one_ , was fine. But he couldn’t. She had that lying tone of voice that he had come to recognize, even when he really wished he didn’t. Something bad had happened--maybe a lot of things--while he was gone, and he hadn’t known about any of it.

    “I don’t believe you,” he told her; Sylar kept a comforting hand on his shoulder as he spoke with a trembling voice. "Just tell me what happened, Ma," he continued, lowering his voice so that people who may have been passing by wouldn't overhear him. "Please."

     Angela took a deep, shaky breath, and then she hesitated for several seconds. Peter's heart beat fast, and his hands trembled as he held the payphone to his ear. He had half a mind to just drop it and fly away, to go on evading the truth, but… no. He had to know. And so he stood there, jaw clenched, and waited for his mother to tell him.

    And, after a long moment of unbearable tension, she did.

* * *

 

    So, Micah's plan to get the band back together wasn't going to work out, he reflected as he lay in his hospital bed and stared up at the ceiling. The question was, what would he do now? Would he go back to America, or keep working at the game store? He had no real reason to stay in Tokyo any longer, but it'd probably rub Miko the wrong way for him to just take off after only working for her for a week. She might think she had done something wrong--that she hadn't been a good boss--when really that couldn't have been farther from the truth. Still, working for her was always going to have been a temporary thing, a step in his plan which he now knew he wouldn't be able to pull off. So why was he so reluctant to leave?

     _Well,_ he thought, propping himself up against his pillow and crossing his arms behind his head, _let's say I do go home._ (Not that he had a real home, exactly, except for maybe the Dawsons' place.) What would he do then? He supposed he could help his cousin Monica organize some more protests and stuff, or he could go back to trying to figure out where Tracy had ended up. Either way, it would be back to the old grind. And, the thing was, he knew what he was doing was good. He loved advocating for the rights of people with powers. But… it was exhausting. Being on the other side of the world and working at a small video game store was a nice change of pace. It was relaxing. And if Micah wanted to keep at it for just a little while longer, surely nobody could blame him for that.

    Of course, there wasn't much he could do at the moment until he was released from the hospital. He already felt pretty alright, although his back and shoulders still ached in the areas he'd been stabbed in, so hopefully the doctors wouldn't keep him there much longer.

    Micah picked up a magazine at random off the bedside table and started idly flipping through it. It was a fishing magazine, and even though there were very few things in the world that interested Micah less than fishing, it was better than just looking at the ceiling--which, along with all the walls, were painted in an excruciatingly dull shade of off-white. It almost made him miss the hideous wallpaper of the hotel he was staying in. The pictures of the fish in the magazine were kind of funny to look at, at least. Well, not _funny_ funny, but enough to prevent him from being completely overtaken with boredom.

    Eventually, a doctor came in to check on him. Setting down the fishing magazine, Micah adjusted his position in the bed and turned to look at the doctor as she scribbled something down on her clipboard.

    "Hey," Micah said. "Do you think I can leave now?"

    "That depends," the doctor replied. "How do you feel?"

    "I think I'm good to go."

    With a hum of contemplation, the doctor pulled down Micah's shirt to look at the wounds on his torso. After looking them over, she clucked her tongue and shook her head.

    "I'm afraid we'll have to keep you here overnight," she said. "With any luck, you should be ready to go by tomorrow--no promises, though!"

    "Aw, man," Micah grumbled--not that he'd had any big plans for that night or anything; he just would have rather not been there. "Well, I guess I'll stay put, then."

    "Is there anyone you would like us to call for you?" the doctor offered. "Any family? Girlfriend, maybe?"

    "Well…" Micah thought it over for a minute. He wasn't supposed to come into work until Monday, and he was sure he would be sufficiently healed by then, but it might be good to let his boss know what had happened to him just in case. "You could call Miko. Miko Otomo," he clarified quickly. "She's my--"

    "Alright, got it," the doctor cut him off, jotting the name down on her clipboard. "I'll look her up in the phonebook and give her a call."

    "Cool, thanks," Micah replied.

    The doctor left the room, and Micah turned back to the stack of magazines. He rifled through the pile until he found a gaming magazine from a few years ago. With a pang of excitement, he picked it up and began to read. One of the games that was being advertised on the front looked really interesting--this 3D open world platformer called _Evernow._ He'd never heard of the game before, so he figured it'd never gotten a worldwide release. While he was still hanging around Japan, it sounded like the kind of thing he might want to check out sometime.

* * *

 

    Parker was pretty sure her name wasn't actually Parker, but she didn't know what her real name was, or very much else about herself, so "Parker" would have to do for now. There were a few things she knew about herself, though--the things she had written down in her two journals. One of the journals was her current one that she'd been keeping since the day she woke up the previous month with a head full of static and only the vaguest, blurriest snatches of memories. The other one was from before she had woken up. Unfortunately, it was severely water damaged, to the point where barely any of it was even remotely readable. There were only a couple of legible pages left in the whole book, and without any context, it was downright impossible to tell who and what exactly her past self had been talking about. Still, that was better than nothing at all.

    To tell the truth, Parker hadn't really been expecting Malina to show up that night. In fact, she'd almost completely forgotten about it herself. Once the evening crept into night and the library had emptied out apart from her, she was just about to pack up her things and leave when the library doors swung open with a creak and Malina stepped through. She paused in the doorway, backpack slung over her shoulder and eyes wide with apprehension, for a couple of seconds until Parker slowly raised a finger and beckoned her over. Malina practically skittered over to sit down beside her. Slightly bemused, Parker shot her a smile and considered patting her on the arm, but decided it would be too friendly. She didn't really know this person, she reminded herself, and some niggling sensation in the back of her mind told her not to trust too many people, because a lot of people out there wanted to hurt her.

    "So, um, you said you would tell me what you know about yourself?" Malina prompted after they sat there staring at each other for a moment.

    "Oh! Right, yes," Parker said, cheeks colouring as she reached for her current, non-water-damaged notebook. "Okay, let's start with this. I made my first entry on the 20th of September, but I actually woke up on the 17th. The thing was, I woke up in the middle of a forest, and it took me a couple days to make my way into a city. I didn't remember anything about myself when I woke up, and I still mostly don't, but I've kind of remembered a few things from looking at my other journal--my old one, from before I woke up."

    "How does it… feel?" Malina asked hesitantly. "The missing memories, I mean. Like, when you try to access them?"

    "It feels like static, kind of," Parker said. "It's like… I don't think the memories have actually been removed, exactly. It might be more like something is covering them up."

    "Static, huh?" Malina muttered. Then she cleared her throat and quickly said, "Uh, never mind. So, what did you do once you got to the city?"

    "Well, first I sort of asked around to see if anybody knew who I was," she said. "Nobody did, but I had this on me--" She held up her other notebook. "And since it was so badly damaged, I decided I would buy another one. This is where my entries in my current journal begin."

    She opened up the notebook to its first page and slid it open to Malina. Malina scooted in closer to the table and leaned over to read the entries.

*

_20th August, 2019_

_Today I arrived in a city. Apparently it's called Costa Verde. Nobody around here seems to know who I am. I bought this notebook and I wandered around for a while. Eventually I met this nice lady with a pomeranian who's letting me stay at her place (the woman, I mean, not the dog.) She mentioned something about empty nest syndrome and missing her daughter. Maybe the daughter is away in college? I didn't think to ask. Anyway, it's really nice of her to let me stay at her place, so I made sure to thank her for that. Bye for now, and I'll be sure to keep you posted._

_UPDATE: the woman's name is Sandra. I figured I had better document it, in case my mind gets wiped again._

*

_24th August, 2019_

_Still staying at Sandra's house. She keeps asking me stuff, like where I'm from and who I am. I keep telling her that I don't know. I've been going by "Moira" even though I don't think that's really my name. It was just the first thing that popped into my head. I guess maybe I could make up fake answers to Sandra's questions, but it probably wouldn't be nice to lie to her. Somehow I get the feeling she's really lonely._

*

_29th August, 2019_

_I had to hide upstairs in my room today. You know why? Because somebody dropped by the house today! It was this young guy, a little older than me. I think he's Sandra's son. He talked about somebody called Claire, and then Sandra got really mad and they started yelling at each other. I didn't hear most of what they were saying, but it made the dog start barking like crazy. I'm pretty sure I know the name Claire from somewhere, but like everything else, I can't remember where I heard it from._

_I asked Sandra about it once the man had left and she said she didn't want to talk about it. It sucks to see her so sad. :(_

*

_30th August, 2019_

_I didn't look too hard at any of the photos hung up on Sandra's walls before, but after yesterday I finally decided to. A lot of them are of dogs and stuff, but some are of this really pretty blonde girl. There's one photo of Sandra and the guy who came over yesterday with the girl and this kind of scary looking guy with glasses. I don't know why, but looking at the glasses man made me shudder. It also makes my head hurt to look at photos of him. Anyway, that's not why I'm making this entry. The reason is what happened next:_

_I stared at the photos of the girl for a while, and then all of a sudden it was sort of like I could see her! Her hair was dyed black, but it was definitely her. I couldn't tell exactly where she was, but I got the feeling that she was somewhere not too far away._

_So, I guess that means I've got a power? That's pretty cool, huh? I wonder if it's limited to just finding people, or if I can do other stuff, too. Maybe I'm like Eleven from "Stranger Things"! That would be cool, huh? (Speaking of which, I was watching that show the other day, and for some reason I was really drawn toward Eleven's relationship with Hopper. I wonder what it is about a traumatized little girl with powers that people want to exploit forming a surrogate father-daughter bond with a cop that appeals to me so much.)_

*

_2nd September, 2019_

_Okay, so, bad news._

_I tried using my newfound powers some more, and it seems like it's limited to just finding people. But that's still cool, right? And, yeah, it was at first. I tried again with a photo of that girl (I guess she's probably Claire?) and I managed to work out where she is. Since Sandra seemed so upset about Claire the other day, I thought I could cheer her up by letting her know I had managed to find her. Only, when I told her about it, she got upset. She said that I was lying to her or tricking her, and that Claire was "gone", whatever that's supposed to mean. I insisted that I had found her, and Sandra got even more mad. She told me to get out of her house._

_So now I don't know where to go. I guess maybe I should leave this city and try to go somewhere else. Part of me wants to go to New York, but that's so far away! Maybe I can go to LA, though. I don't know why, but I kind of feel like I belong there. Maybe that's where I'm from. If so, maybe somebody there will know who I am. Maybe I even have family there._

*

    "Woah, woah, woah," Malina interjected suddenly when she was about halfway through the notebook. "Parker, this… this Sandra woman you stayed with--her last name wouldn't happen to be Bennet, by any chance?"

    "Um…" Chewing her lip, Parker thought back to her time under the motherly dog owner's roof. She had never asked her last name, and as far as she could recall, Sandra had never told her. "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

    The look on Malina's face was some blend of confusion, disbelief, wonder, and the faintest trace of hope.

    "M-my mom's name was Claire," she said. "And _her_ mom's name is Sandra. And they… well, they lived in Odessa first, but then they moved to Costa Verde. Only… my mom is supposed to be dead."

    "Oh," Parker murmured. If Claire was the daughter Sandra had mentioned, and she was dead, no wonder Sandra had reacted that way… "But I know she's alive! I've seen her! Well, I haven't actually _seen_ her, but I--"

    "No, it's okay. I trust you," Malina told her. Then she blinked, and though startled that she had just said that. "I mean--I guess I don't know if I can trust you, per se, but I believe you. You know, it's funny," she went on, drumming her fingers against the desk, "Noah--that's Claire's dad, only she was adopted, so I don't know if I can technically call him and Sandra my grandparents--he talked about a girl with the power to find people. Only he said that girl had a breakdown and killed herself. Weird coincidence, right?"

    "Huh," Parker said slowly, suddenly feeling as though she had just had the floor pulled out from under her. "Yeah, weird coincidence."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things can't go on the way they have been for much longer; tensions are nearing their breaking point. Sylar wishes there was more he could do. Malina omits some information. Mohinder and Claire get some unwelcome company.

    "So, uh, how goes the business?" Ji Woo asked, fluttering her eyelashes as she fiddled with the straw in her drink.

    "Oh, it's going," Kimiko sighed. "How goes the… er, what was it you did again?"

     _Crap._ Enough time had passed since their first date that Ji Woo had completely forgotten the fake life story she had come up with. Ears heating up, she took a big sip of her drink (some kind of syrupy sweet concoction with barely any kick to it; she would've preferred beer) so she would have an excuse not to respond immediately. While she swallowed the fruity mouthful down, trying not to grimace at the taste, she wracked her mind for the cover story she'd come up with. As far as she could remember, she had told the truth about her parents, and then come up with some bullshit reason for what had brought her to Japan. What had that reason been again…?

    "Photography, right?" Kimiko said with a snap of her fingers. Hastily, Ji Woo nodded; Kimiko smiled in a vaguely smug manner. "See, I didn't forget."

    "Well, you know how it is with, uh, photography," said Ji Woo. "I've just been taking lots of pictures, wherever I go. I dunno how good any of them are, but… whatever, right? I've been trying my best."

    "Here, here," said Kimiko, lifting her glass. She was drinking a gin and tonic, and had already polished off half the glass in the fifteen minutes or so that they had been waiting for their orders to arrive. "Do you think you could show me any of your photos sometime?" she added after taking a sip. "I would love to see them."

    "Ohh… nope, sorry, I don't think so," Ji Woo said, gritting her teeth and sincerely hoping that Kimiko wouldn't ask why. Bruce was the one who was good at coming up with cover stories, not her--if only she had remembered that she was supposed to have been a photographer!

    Luckily, Kimiko just shrugged and took another sip of her gin and tonic.

    "That's fine by me," she said. "I guess your photos must be kind of personal. Me, I've never really been the artsy type. It's all business and numbers in my head."

    "I mean, I would say there's a mathematical aspect to photography as well," Ji Woo put in. "Because of the, er, you know…"

    "Oh, yes, of course--lense sizes, camera angles, all of that," Kimiko supplied. "There's a mathematical aspect to almost everything in the world, really. It makes you wonder why so many people hate it so much."

    "Hate what? The world?"

    "Huh? Oh, no, math," she clarified. "Do you hate math? My brother and his… er, friend… certainly always did."

    Ji Woo shrugged. Honestly, she couldn't stand math _or_ art, or most other school subjects. That was probably why she had dropped out and joined a gang in the tenth grade. But that definitely wasn't the kind of information that would paint her in a good light and make Kimiko like her, so she instead tried to think about the answer that a chipper aspiring photographer might give.

    "I like it just fine," she said. She was halfway through asking "How about you?" before she realized that Kimiko had just finished saying how much she liked math.

    Cheeks heating up, she broke off into stammering for a couple seconds, as Kimiko gazed at her with what looked like bemusement. Then, after a couple seconds of panic, she managed to bounce back with:

    "Why did you pause like that when bringing up your brother's 'friend', anyway?"

    At that, Kimiko's bemused smile faded and was replaced by a troubled look. Ji Woo sucked in a breath, feeling a pang of guilt for bringing her date's mood down. She had to strictly remind herself that this was the whole purpose of dating Kimiko in the first place: to learn more about her brother's so-called friend. Enough to kidnap him. That was her mission, and regardless of how beautiful Kimiko was, Ji Woo could _not_ allow herself to be distracted from it.

    "...My brother was a very lonely child growing up," Kimiko said after a long moment, during which the low rabble of the other people at the restaurant felt so loud it was unbearable. "He only ever really had one friend. And when they grew up, they eventually fell in love and got married. But even then, they were always friends, first and foremost. It's not a lie to call them that."

    "Right, okay." Twirling the straw around in her glass, Ji Woo leaned back in her seat and did her best to seem casual. "And how's that guy doing now? Has he remarried, or…?"

    "Oh, no, he's still quite hung up on Hiro," Kimiko said. Then, all of a sudden, she paused with her glass lifted halfway to her mouth. Eyes narrowing, she set the glass down and leaned across the table to stare intently at Ji Woo. "Wait a minute. I didn't tell you that anything had happened to my brother."

    "Oh, that's right," Ji Woo said quickly, chest seizing up as her date stared her down. Thinking fast, she stammered: "I just thought--um, you know, you just seem so sad when you talk about him. I figured something must have happened."

    Kimiko pursed her lips. Gaze dropping, she silently picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of her sharply pressed suit. Somewhere in the opposite corner of the restaurant, a baby started crying. She flinched at the sound and then shook her head as if to clear her thoughts.

    "You're a very perceptive woman," she sighed, and Ji Woo blushed at the compliment despite herself. "My brother vanished one day a few years ago. Ando--that's Hiro's friend--held out hope for a long time that he would come back, but… he didn't. A little over a year after Hiro disappeared, this young boy showed up and introduced himself as Hiro's adoptive son. I'm not--" She paused, taking a long sip of her gin and tonic. For the first time that night, she grimaced as she drank it. "I'm not entirely clear on what happened to Hiro, but I know that he's never going to come back."

    Although Ji Woo and Bruce had both already known about Hiro's disappearance and likely death, seeing the way Kimiko's eyes remained downcast as she spoke, hearing how she fought to keep a tremble out of her voice, made a lump swell in Ji Woo's throat. Kimiko talked about her brother having been lonely, but from the sound of it, she was kind of lonely too. Maybe… maybe kidnapping her brother-in-law wasn't such a good idea after all.

    As soon as that thought entered her mind, Ji Woo gritted her teeth and rattled off a string of curses under her breath. No, damn it, she couldn't afford to get soft and start thinking like that! She and Bruce had lost two perfectly good coworkers to that kind of softness. They _needed_ Ando's supercharging powers for their plan to work, and besides, it wasn't like they were going to kill him or anything. (Or even if they did kill him, Ji Woo could just bring him back again, no problem.) Kimiko wouldn't even have to know he was gone. In fact, maybe they could do what they'd done with the boy and make her forget about her brother-in-law altogether…

    Now, putting on a sympathetic pout, Ji Woo leaned forward and laid her hand atop Kimiko's.

    "Aw, no," she said. "That must have been so hard for you."

    "I think it was harder for Ando than me, honestly," Kimiko admitted. "Hiro and I were never that close. Only… I don't know, I guess now that he's gone I kind of wish we had been closer." She paused and ran her tongue around her mouth. "God, why am I even telling you all of this?"

    "Well, I asked, didn't I?"

    "I know, I know, I just… I don't know. I guess I'm normally a little more guarded," she said. "Maybe it's the alcohol getting to me."

    "Or maybe it's just my charming personality?"

    Ji Woo fluttered her eyelashes again, and the faintest hint of a smile flickered across Kimiko's face. Atop the table, their fingers slowly laced together as they held each other's gazes. The pounding in Ji Woo's heart was overwhelming, and she felt something big and new and _soft_ \--softer than she could afford to be--swell inside of her. _Well, shit,_ she thought, as the opening notes of a sappy love song played in the background amidst the chatter of other diners. _I'm screwed._

* * *

 

    A crisp autumn breeze blew by outside, ruffling Peter's hair as he stood at the open window. Sylar watched him from his position on the couch, where Rolex was curled up on his lap, purring (the cat was making a thankfully swift recovery since the whole mishap of a couple days ago). In the corner of the living room, the old stereo sat atop a bookshelf next to some old Petrelli family photos. It wasn't playing anything at the moment, but it occasionally emitted the soft crackle of static. Peter flinched at the static every time, and every time, Sylar wanted to say something. He didn't, though, and so the silence kept dragging out for longer.

    Finally, after what felt like hours, the noise of a woodpecker rang out from somewhere in the forest. Stepping back from the window as suddenly as though it had just caught alight, Peter closed the window and brushed his hair out of his eyes. With the same melancholy expression he had worn for nearly three days straight now, he turned to face Sylar, who gave him a slow, catlike blink of acknowledgement. Letting out a little sigh, Peter walked over and sat down beside Sylar. He leaned his head against his shoulder, and Sylar looped an arm around his back.

    "Hey, girl," Peter addressed Rolex, giving her a scratch behind the ears. "How're you feeling today?"

    "Mrrp?" Rolex mewed, raising her head to blink sleepily up at Peter.

    "I would imagine she's feeling better than you are," Sylar said. "The vet said she should be just fine by the end of the week, remember?"

    "Yeah, of course," Peter said without looking up from the cat. "I'm just checking in on my favourite little girl, isn't that right, sweetie?"

    Slipping into a baby-talk tone, he made some soft clicking noises at Rolex, who meowed and gave him an affectionate headbutt. Peter smiled, and for a moment Sylar could see the bright sunlight filtering through the dark clouds which had filled Peter's mind for the past few days. Then Rolex yawned, hopped off of Sylar's lap, and padded away--presumably to go hide under their bed--and Peter slumped back into the couch with a heavy sigh. Sylar didn't bother to ask if there was anything he could do to help. He had already asked several times, and each time Peter's response had been the same: a vacant smile that didn't reach the eyes and a slight shake of his head. He understood why he wouldn't have been much help; empathy had never been Sylar's strong suit, so when it came to comforting people, he left much to be desired. It was a shame that there was nobody else around to provide Peter with the comfort he needed.

    Still, for posterity's sake, he squeezed Peter's hand and pressed a kiss to his temple.

    "If there's anything I can do for you, ask me," he said for perhaps the twelfth time in three days. "Okay, darling?"

    Peter nodded, flashing him another one of those not-quite smiles, and then got up and wandered over toward the bedroom. He came back a couple minutes later holding a CD, which he then proceeded to load up into the stereo. When he pressed play, Sylar recognized the music almost immediately--of course he did, because they had been listening to the same twenty or so CDs for years on end, but in this case he was able to place it from the very first second. Sylar arched an eyebrow; this particular CD was one that Peter rarely played because a couple of the songs on it hit him too close to home.

    "Fleet Foxes," Sylar observed. "What made you decide to play that?"

    Peter shrugged, without turning to face Sylar.

    "It's pretty music, isn't it?"

    "Yes, it's very nice," Sylar agreed. "I thought you didn't like hearing it, though. Those lyrics about brothers and deceit and death…?"

    "It's just nice to listen to sometimes, though," Peter said with a twinge of defensiveness in his tone. As if to prove his point, he dialed the volume up a notch. "And it's about the forest. That's fitting, right? I mean, we're in a forest. We have been for, what--eight, nine years now?"

    Gradually, his voice grew louder, and it sharpened into something that sounded almost like an accusation. He turned around to stare Sylar down, and Sylar felt a pang of dismay at the tears glistening in the corners of his boyfriend's eyes.

    "Hiding away from the outside world, safe in our little cottage while back in the real world people are dying? And I can't do a damn thing to stop them--I didn't get the _chance_ to, because you and Ma sent me out here!"

    Sylar got to his feet and walked over to Peter. He laid his hand on Peter's arm, but Peter jerked away from his touch.

    "No! No, don't touch me; you're the one who came up with the idea for this whole stupid arrangement in the first place," he snapped. "I could have protected them, you know! Claire, and Hiro, and Matt… I--I could have protected them, if I had just been there!"

    "You couldn't have," Sylar told him, grabbing Peter's arm again and keeping a gentle but firm hold on it. "Nobody could have saved them. Especially not Claire. If Noah couldn't protect her, nobody could."

    "I could have!" Peter insisted, his shout punctuated by a choked-back sob. "I'm supposed to protect people. And… and out here, I can't. I couldn't."

    "Peter--"

    "It's been nice, being with you," Peter went on, with any trace of anger evaporating from his wavering voice. "I've really loved it. And I really love you, Sylar. But I can't stay here any longer. I just can't."

    "Peter, I'm sorry, but you have to stay here," Sylar said quietly, tightening his grip on his arm when Peter tried to break away. "It isn't safe for us out there. Besides," he added, jerking his head toward the doorway Rolex had disappeared through, "We've got a cat to look after, right? We can't just take off and leave her behind."

    Peter fell silent and his gaze dropped to the floor. He stood there in silence for a long moment, his whole body trembling with barely contained emotions. Then, finally, he slowly nodded. Sylar let out a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding, and he pulled Peter into an embrace. Peter leaned against him and sighed into his shoulder without quite hugging back.

    "I just miss them so much," he whispered, voice muffled by the fabric of Sylar's shirt. "I just… God, Sylar, I miss them."

    Sylar didn't say anything in response. He didn't feel that it was his place to speak on the matter, since he had never really gotten the chance to bond with any of Peter's friends and family. Even after his redemption, they hadn't exactly warmed up to him, and while he couldn't entirely blame them for that, it made it difficult for him to share his boyfriend's sentiments. However, he evidently didn't have to say anything, because Peter didn't comment on his silence,  nor did he say anything more himself. He simply stood where he was and let himself be held.

* * *

 

    The pink neon "NO" on the vacancy sign outside the Highchurch Hotel flickered on as night fell on Silver City, New Mexico. Within the establishment's faded green walls, Noah opened the door to his hotel room. Without even stopping to take in the room's interior, he walked over to the bed and threw his suitcase down onto it. Then, letting out a long sigh, he sat down on the edge of the bed and kicked off his shoes. His hands involuntarily trembled as he reached over to open up his suitcase and take out his cell phone.

    It was the fourth night of his little road trip, and to say he was a bundle of nerves would be an understatement. He hadn't been in contact with Malina since setting out, since none of the hotels he'd been staying at had cell service, but he could assume that the situation hadn't changed regarding her memory (he kept meaning to get in touch with Anne Clarke to see whether her memories of Tommy were intact, but he didn’t have her number in his phone, so he had yet to get around to it). According to the man at the front desk, though, this particular hotel _did_ have cell service, and it was supposed to get pretty good reception. Of course, Noah reflected as he scrolled through his list of contacts and selected Malina's number, just because the man at the desk said something didn't make it true.

    Luckily, it did appear to be true in this case. The phone rang twice before Malina answered, with a twinge of sleepiness in her voice. That made sense--it was almost 11:30 PM, according to the analog clock on the wall over by the reception desk. Noah had half a mind to scold her for being up so late, but he held his tongue. _After all,_ he thought with a pang of pent-up sorrow, _she's not my daughter._

    "Hey, gramps. What's up?"

    "Oh, I'm just checking in on you," he told her. Despite everything, he felt a flutter of satisfaction at hearing her call him _gramps_. "Seeing how things are going."

    "Gonna ask me about my nonexistent brother again?" she asked, in that particular tone of voice that really wants to be joking but isn't deep down.

    "Yes, actually, I was. Or, more to the point, whether you've remembered him. But I take it you haven't."

    Malina was quiet for a moment. On the other end of the line, Noah thought he heard the sound of rustling paper.

    "Oh, are you in the middle of studying?" he asked. "I shouldn't have interrupted you, then. Sorry about that."

    "No… no, it's fine," she said. "Yeah, uh, I guess I'm sort of studying. And, no, I don't remember ever having a brother."

    "That's what I thought," Noah sighed. "Well, I--"

    "It's kind of fucking me up, honestly--pardon my language," Malina went on. "I mean, if what you're saying is true, and I've got this twin brother who I don't even remember? Then, like, all of my memories must be totally distorted! Because there's this person out there who I grew up with, and--"

    "You didn't grow up with him."

    "--And he's just, he's just _gone_ from my mind…" She trailed off, presumably as she processed Noah's words. "Wait, what?"

    "You were separated at birth, more or less. You were raised by completely different people. You didn't even know about each other, or your true heritage. Hell, I didn't know about you guys, either." As he spoke, Noah took his glasses off, folded them up, and went to lay them on the nightstand only to find that there wasn't one. "The two of you have only existed as a unit for about the past five and a half years. You've bonded a lot during that time, of course, but your entire memory hasn't been completely decimated by whatever is affecting you."

    "...Huh," Malina said slowly. "Okay, cool. That's good to know. What did you say his name was, again?" she asked, accompanied by another paper-rustling sound.

    Now that Noah paid more attention to it, it sounded less like the thick, laminated pages of a textbook and more like a notebook. He arched an eyebrow; as far as he knew, the twins had never kept journals. But, then again, maybe he was overthinking and it really was a textbook. 

    "His name is Tommy," he told her.

    "Right… Tommy." She paused, then drew in a sharp breath as though she wanted to say more. A couple seconds later, she let the breath out in a quiet sigh. "Um, anyways, I've got a lot of studying to do here. Talk to you later, okay?"

    "Alright. Take care of yourself."

    Upon hanging up, Noah powered his phone down and tucked it back into his suitcase. He tucked his glasses into the suitcase as well, then closed it back up and laid it down on the floor. He supposed it would be in his best interest to try to get some sleep.

* * *

 

    Malina suppressed a grimace as she ended the call and laid her phone facedown on the desk next to the two journals laid out before her. She wished she could have told him about what she had read in the journals--that Claire might have still been alive after all--but what if it turned out not to be true? It would be cruel to get Noah's hopes up like that. And, as much as she wanted to, she had no idea if she could trust or believe Parker, if that was even her real name. And when the young woman herself wasn't even sure who she was, could the contents of her journals really be upheld as fact?

    Sighing, Malina adjusted her posture and picked the journal she was flipping through back up. Parker's older journal, as water damaged as it was, did have quite a few interesting bits of information in it. For instance, on one of the more legible pages in the midsection of the journal, there were a few entries that Malina could make out well enough to almost piece together. From the sound of it, this section of Parker's life had been pretty high-action.

*

_10th December 2016_

_Today we arrived at -----. ----- says that this will be an easy mission. I'm not so sure about that, though. If ------ then this might be pretty difficult. But I guess with all four of us working together we can probably manage._

_The plan is that -------- and then when she's got him distracted, the rest of us will sneak around to the back of the house. I didn't see him with anybody when -----, so I think he doesn't usually have people over. That should make things simple enough. And, as always, ------- if anything goes wrong. Be sure to wish me luck, journal (LOL!)_

*

_17th February 2017_

_Good news: the last few missions have been going great! I guess ----- has really paid off. The others tell me my aim has really been improving, too! Isn't that great? Even ---, and everyone knows how hard it is to get her approval. Apparently the next mission we go on is going to be a bit harder, but if I'm improving as much as the others say, I bet I can handle it!_

_I wonder if ----- would approve if they were here. Sometimes I feel like they wouldn't, especially since --------, and what we're doing is, like, way super illegal. But they're not here! And besides, ------. So as long as ---- and I keep getting paid well for our efforts, I guess we'll keep doing what we're doing._

_And I know what we're doing is making a positive difference! I know I can trust ----; after all, -------. We're doing the right thing, I'm sure of it. Who cares if not everyone would be happy? I'm a grown-up now. I can make my own decisions. And I'm deciding to stick with ------ and keep fighting for the rights of people like us! We've got to -----!_

*

_24th May 2017_

_Oh, boy, things are looking bad for us right now! We tried to ------ but it turned out that --------. ------- and I don't know if -------. Hopefully -----, but if not, we're all doomed. I guess the reason I'm writing this entry is so that, in case anybody finds this journal, they can read it and tell my story. ----, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. I never should have -------. I guess I just thought I owed it to them since -----, but ------. I'm really sorry._

*

    That last entry was particularly obscured, not only by stained pages and smeared ink like the other entries, but also with several large blotches of blood splatter. A chill ran down Malina's spine as she read it over. It wasn't the last entry in the journal by far, so clearly Parker had made it out okay, but it must have been utterly terrifying for the poor woman to go through such a harrowing experience.

    Setting the journal down, Malina scooted back from the desk and stood up to stretch. In the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Parker was sitting cross-legged and watching her with a faint smile on her face. Her map was laid out in front of her, along with a box of markers she was using to draw on it. She didn't look like a person who had gone through all the things she had written about in her journal. That made sense, though, of course--her troubled past couldn't affect her if she didn't remember any of it.

    "Do you ever get little flashes of memory?" Malina asked as she sat down on the bed next to Parker. She had a growing hunch as to who the woman really was, but she didn't want to share it in case she was wrong, which was very possible. "Like, is there ever a moment when you wake up and you expect to be with a particular person, or doing a particular thing?"

     "Kind of," Parker said with a shrug. "Sometimes I feel scared all of a sudden, like somebody is out to get me. But then the feeling goes away after a few seconds. And…" She reached up to run a hand over the back of her head; with a pang of concern, Malina noticed that her hand trembled slightly. "Sometimes I get these weird phantom pains in my head."

    "I see," Malina murmured. "Say, Parker… if you've found somebody once, you can find them again, right?"

    Parker nodded. Malina motioned to the map of California laid out in front of them, swallowing back a twinge of apprehension.

    "Do you think you could try to locate Claire Bennet again?"

    "Oh, yes, of course!" Parker said. "You want me to find your mom for you?"

    "Yeah, I--" Malina broke off as her voice wavered with a rush of emotion. "Yeah, that would be nice."

    "Okay," Parker said nonchalantly, as though there were nothing to it at all.

    She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Malina watched with bated breath as Parker's face contorted with concentration, heart pounding. If this worked--if she found Claire--it would change everything. Even more so, if Malina was able to go to that location and actually, physically find Claire for herself… if she could meet her own mother…

    But, no; she was getting ahead of herself. Again, she had no idea if she could trust the woman sitting next to her. Maybe she had found a different person who just happened to have the same name--weirder things had happened, right? Or even if Claire was out there somewhere, alive again, actually finding her might not be so easy. Besides, before Malina got too caught up in the pipe dream of reuniting with her dead mother, didn't she have a twin brother to find? She may not have remembered Tommy's existence, but she would take Noah's word for it. If he was out there somewhere, which she hoped to hell he was, she would have to try to find him, too. Maybe Parker would be able to help with that as well, but without a face to go on, it might not be possible.

    While Malina was thinking about all this, Parker picked up a red marker and popped the cap off. She lowered the marker so that its tip hovered just over the surface of the map. Biting her lip in concentration, she slowly moved her hand across the map, along Highway 15. After a couple minutes, she came to a stop and drew a small red dot on the map.

    "I found her," she announced, meeting Malina's eyes with a grin. "She just stopped at a gas station along the highway."

    "Wow," Malina muttered. "By the way, there's no way you can… share this power with me, can you? That is to say, show me what you saw just now?"

    "No, sorry, I don't think so."

     She'd thought as much. So, then, it all came down to whether or not Malina wanted to put her trust in Parker. It wasn't as if she had a lot to lose either way, right? And if Claire really was out there, well within their reach… she had to seek her out! Even if it turned out not to be true, it would be better to know for certain, to find out for herself. Malina took in a deep breath, slowly let it out, and then repeated that action until she had collected her racing thoughts and her heartbeat had slowed to its normal rate. Then she stood up, grabbing a hair tie from her dresser, and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

    "If my mom is out there, I've got to find her," she announced. "Parker, can you drive?"

    "Probably not," Parker admitted. "But college students like you get free bus rides, right?"

    "Yep, as long as I show 'em my student ID," Malina confirmed. "So I guess I take that, and some money… and I guess your map and stuff… and we go on a little road trip together. How does that sound?"

    Parker grinned. She folded her map up, tucked it into her backpack, and zipped it up. She then jumped up from her spot on the bed and hoisted her backpack onto her back. In a remarkably casual gesture, she slipped her hand into Malina's.

    "That sounds great," she said. "Should we leave tomorrow, then?"

     Malina paused to think it over. She had classes the next day--her schedule was busy enough that she had at least one class every day of the school week--but it was only applications of geometry and advanced calculus. She could live without that. And, if she was being honest with herself, she could probably live without going to any of her other classes for a few days as well. It wasn't like she had any upcoming deadlines to worry about or anything. Finding her mom was way more important than school. Even so, she decided with a tiny twinge of guilt, it would probably be wise not to tell Noah about this.

    "Yep, tomorrow's good for me," she agreed. "I'll look up bus schedules tonight, and I'll wake you up in the morning when it's time to leave. And then…" A grin crept onto her face, and despite all her efforts not to get her hopes up, excitement surged through her. "And then we can set off to find Claire."

* * *

 

    Mohinder could tell that Claire was getting tired of their ongoing road trip, such as it was. More and more, she requested that they stop at small towns and roadside attractions and gas stations that were not marked on Mohinder's evo-safe map. Not only that--when they did stop, she wanted to stay in any given place for as long as possible, and stop by as many shops in the towns where they spent the night.

    "A pawn shop?" he asked incredulously at one point when Claire pointed at the store window. "What would you even hope to purchase from there?"

    "Like neckties or like macrame," she said with a shrug. "Bowlines and zeppelin bends."

    "Well, I don't think we need any of that," he told her. "We just need to find a place to sleep and be done with it."

    "You can buy what's in demand!" she objected. "Fifteen years ago."

    Mohinder sighed and shook his head. "You can go in there if you'd like, but I'd rather you not buy anything. We're short enough on money as it is."

    He would have chalked her increasing restlessness up to teenage rebellion, had she not long outgrown that stage in her life. As it was, he could only assume that she was growing tired of being in his company exclusively. No doubt she missed her family, and he could hardly blame her for that. As soon as he could deduce what was wrong with her and put an end to it, he would personally see to it that she was reunited with them. And, if they happened to cross paths with any of Claire's friends or family during their trip, he would hardly object to it. He just thought it might be a bit disconcerting for them to see her in such a state, that was all. It wasn't as though Mohinder was actively trying to keep Claire from the people she loved. But, although he explained this to her time and time again, he wasn't so sure she believed him anymore.

    On one remarkably crisp October day, a thin frost settled over the grass at the side of the roads. Mohinder made a mental note that they would have to stock up on warmer clothes soon if their trip continued for much longer. In order for that to happen, he would have to withdraw some money from the bank… he wondered how his account was looking these days. Without a steady source of income, he was sure it was dwindling quite pathetically. Perhaps he would have to go back to being a taxi driver.

    "Every day that I am snowed in," Claire sighed as she gazed out the window at the frost-dusted lands, "I'm a coward; I'm corroding."

    "Please don't say that about yourself," Mohinder said. "It isn't cowardly to value one's own safety. No species would survive without a sense of self-preservation."

    Claire didn't reply. Shifting her position slightly, she turned up the volume on the car radio. As was sometimes the case on such a cloudy day, the radio was picking up waves from places it normally wouldn't. Currently, it was broadcasting a news story about a campground somewhere in Canada.

     _"As someone who's worked here for over five years, I can safely say that the lake is definitely not haunted."_ a man was saying. He chuckled, and it sounded oddly forced. _"Lake Ghiacciato may be a bit brisk for your tastes, but that doesn't mean there are any malevolent spirits lurking within!"_

     Another voice of an older-sounding person came in; Mohinder guessed that they were the narrator of this particular news story. (Or maybe it wasn't exactly a news story so much as a mixed opinion piece.)

     _"But not everyone shares Mr. Woodsman's opinion. Let's see what his ex-wife, Shema Bizimungu, has to say."_

_"There isn't… it's not a ghost in the lake. I can tell you that much for certain,"_ said a woman with a faint Rwandan accent. _"But there is definitely something usual in there--or rather, some_ one. _I know this will sound crazy, but seeing as we live in a world full of people with powers, I'm sure somebody out there will believe me. You see, a couple of years ago, Jeffie and I…"_

    Rolling her eyes, Claire changed the radio to a pop station. Despite not generally being the type to buy into outlandish tales of the supernatural, Mohinder chuckled a bit at her apparent dismissal of the woman on the radio.

    "You know, if you had gone on the radio back in 2006 and talked about your healing abilities, I doubt the public would have been quick to believe you."

    "I've got a movie-making camera and a dozen grenades."

    "What? Oh, yes, I see," he said, recalling the recordings Claire had reportedly made of herself in her youth. "You're right, of course: evidence is the key when it comes to things like this. Why, it was seeing the evidence of people like you for myself that finally swayed me to believe in my father's theories."

    Claire nodded, looking pleased that he had understood what she was getting at. "But I cannot say a thing, I cannot say a thing… without proof, oh no!"

    "Indeed. You know, Claire," he added, taking his eyes off the road for just a moment to give her a nod of approval, "You would have made an excellent scientist yourself."

    Claire raised her eyebrows. Then, with a teasing glint in her eye, she cleared her throat and said, in a rather preposterous fake accent:

    "DNA is crucial; we must understand it. In the human genome, we will find your logo."

    "Now, now," Mohinder chided, clucking his tongue at the impression.

    Still, he reflected as Claire snickered to herself, it was good that she was enjoying herself again. He just wished that he could put her in a more permanent good mood. Even though they had never been particularly close before Claire's death, he was beginning to like her quite a bit. And…

    It was strange, but in a way, spending all this time with Claire reminded Mohinder of his time as a surrogate father to Molly. Thinking of those days, his heart ached, in no small part because he was the only surviving member of the little family he had Matt had built together with that little girl. Of course, she hadn't been so little the last time he had seen her--and if she were alive now, she would be well into her twenties, much like Claire and Micah. She wasn't, however, because time had stopped for poor young Molly when she had put a gun against her head and pulled the trigger.

    Mohinder tried not to think about that too much.

* * *

 

    The clock in Peter and Sylar's bedroom ticked on, echoing in Peter's ears as he tossed and turned. Next to him, Sylar was sleeping peacefully, curled up like a cat. Their actual cat was nestled in the crook of his bent knees, purring loudly. Outside, a cool breeze stirred through the forest. A few months ago, the chirping of crickets filled the air, but now autumn had fully set in and all was quiet aside from the occasional hoot of an owl. Rolling over onto his back, Peter stared up at the ceiling, just faintly illuminated by moonlight coming in through the window, and mulled things over.

    He had a good life here. A _great_ life. He would never have stayed for so long if it weren't so. He had been content in his solitude, because it wasn't really solitude when the man he loved was there with him. Only… Sylar was far from the only person Peter loved. He loved his friends, and he loved his surviving family members--although, he thought with a sharp pang of sorrow, he supposed the latter group consisted only of Angela now. He had lost so much in the past few years without even knowing it. How could he stand to remain there any longer?

    Slowly and gently, taking care not to disturb Sylar--or Rolex, who would meow in complaint and in doing so alert Sylar--he lifted himself out of bed and walked over to the window. It was only open halfway, and he knew from years of experience that he couldn't open it wide enough for him to get out through without it creaking. He would have to use the door instead. Peter walked across the room and slipped through the door, which luckily for him _was_ already open wide enough for him to get through. He had left it like that when going to bed that evening, not intentionally, but perhaps something in his subconscious had compelled him to do so.

    Making his way through the living room and the kitchen, hovering a couple feet off the ground to avoid walking on the often-creaky floorboards, Peter considered stopping to write a note explaining his absence, and promising to be back soon. However, he wasn't sure he could really promise that. He had no plans for what to do or where to go; he just knew he had to leave. Every fibre of his being screamed for him to leave behind this cottage in the forest, idyllic as it was, and go protect his surviving friends while he still could. He was sure Sylar would understand, even if he didn't approve.

    The door was unlocked. Peter stepped out into the crisp night air and shut the door behind him. Then, extending his arm, he telekinetically locked the door behind him. Sylar must have been slipping after all this time, but you could never be too careful.

    "I'll come back," he said aloud as he stood facing the cottage. "Once I'm done doing what I need to do. I'll come back to you."

    He stood there for a few seconds more, breathing in and out. Part of him almost wanted Sylar to burst through the door and demand to know what he was doing, just where in the world he thought he was going, and tug him back inside. _It's too dangerous for you to leave_ , he would say. _I'm sorry about your friends, but we have to stay safe._ But he didn't appear, and the cottage stayed silent. Somewhere out in the woods, an owl hooted, and farther in the distance, loons called out to each other from across the waters of a lake. Peter shivered at the cold, rubbing his hands along his arms. It was now or never, he knew. He had to leave.

    And so he turned around, propelled himself up into the sky, and he left.

* * *

 

    Bruce didn't like the direction things were going with Ji Woo.

    He should've known something was up when she came back from her first date with that Kimiko woman all starry-eyed, like some kind of enamoured schoolgirl instead of the hardened badass he knew her to be. But he had brushed it off, and encouraged her to try to get another date, because that was the plan they had come up and it was in their best interest to stick to it. But now, as Ji Woo waltzed into their apartment like she was walking on air, Bruce realized that he had made a big mistake. He should've known that a woman like Ji Woo would be too weak-willed to resist falling in love. The only thing that had ever made him think otherwise was that she hadn't fallen in love with him (although he was still prepared to wait that one out for however long it took). But, nah, Ji Woo the capable business partner was a goner. This was Woo-woo the hopeless romantic.

    "And she only ever takes her coffee black, just like her dad used to," she was blabbering as she grabbed a can of beer from the minifridge. "Isn't that something? Now, you know I'm more inclined to alcohol than caffeine, but black coffee is something I can get behind. Miss me with that sweet sugary bullshit. And Kimiko--"

    "Speaking of sweet and sugary, Woo-woo," Bruce interjected from his position on the couch, "You sure do seem taken with this lady. Remember your mission, eh?"

    "Of course I remember my mission!" Ji Woo barked as she cracked open her can of beer. A spray of foam fizzed up at the top, and she yelped and muttered something in Chinese (or Korean; Bruce couldn't be damned to tell the difference) as a couple droplets flew up and landed on her cheek. "I'm just making sure to get into my role. And as long as I have to date this woman, I may as well try to enjoy myself well I do it."

    "Right, like we enjoyed ourselves when we were travelling around and almost getting killed every five minutes?" Bruce shook his head, frowning. "Listen, you know me. I love love. I'd love for the whole world to love each other. But this specific kind of love… it's no good for us right now. We've got a mission, and I'd hate to see you get distracted from it."

    "Yeah, alright, miss me with that hippie bulllshit, will you?" She reached up to wipe the foam droplets from her cheek, then took a gulp of beer. "Anyway, I'm not gonna fall in love with her."

    "And that's not the only problem," Bruce continued. He ignored her remark about not falling in love; it was clear as daylight that she was already halfway there. "If Kimiko finds out what we're doing--and there's a good chance she will--she ain't gonna be too inclined to date you anymore. And when that happens, I don't want you to get your heart broken."

    Ji Woo stared at him from over the rim of her beer can as she took another sip. Her steely gaze wavered the tiniest bit, and when she lowered the can from her lips and set it back down on the counter, she laid her hand on his wrist and gave him a sort of half-smile.

    "You know what, O'Brien? I appreciate your concern."

    It was the kind of remark that Bruce expected her to follow up with a "but…", and he waited for one for a good thirty seconds or so while Ji Woo held his gaze. Her expression was hard to read, and he figured that was on purpose. As the seconds ticked by, he realized that whatever she said next, she almost certainly wouldn't really mean it. However, rather than saying anything, she simply patted his arm and then wandered off toward their shared bedroom without saying anything more.

    (He guessed that she was going to check on the boy again. She called him their prisoner, but Bruce didn't much care for that term. After all, as far as the boy was concerned, he was staying with his loving parents, and he had to be kept in the bedroom closet for his own safety. It was a shame that he and Ji Woo had to resort to such tactics to accomplish their ultimate goal, but it was the only way. They had learned the hard way that just straight-up recruiting people would always backfire in the end.)

   A few minutes later, when Bruce was flipping through the limited selection of TV channels at their hotel and trying to find something decent to watch, Ji Woo came back out and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. She held an open bag of potato chips in her hand, which she tossed to Bruce without so much as glancing at him.

    "I bought these at a convenience store a couple days ago," she said. "They're a weird flavour, so I don't want them."

    "I can have 'em, then?"

    "You or the garbage can, my dude."

    "Wow," Bruce said, leaning over to clap her on the back. "Thanks, Woo-woo."

    Ji Woo shrugged off his touch and muttered something about pushing his luck. Bruce chuckled, a warm feeling settling in his chest as he took in his coworker's scowling face. She could try to look and act angry all she wanted, but he would always know that she liked him deep down. They wouldn't have stuck together for so long otherwise.

    "So, how are things with the kid?" he asked her.

    "Oh, same old, same old," she sighed. "He's pretty eager to get to helping us out. I guess I had better speed things up a little on my end."

    While she spoke, Bruce reached into the bag and took out a handful of chips. As he stuffed them into his mouth, he noticed a distinct herby tang. After chewing and mulling it over for a moment, he decided that he didn't mind the flavour at all, although he could understand how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

    "I'm supposed to go out with Kimiko again next Wednesday," Ji Woo went on. "Maybe while we're out I could ask more about her brother-in-law, and suggest that she introduce me to him sometime. Oh, and do you think you could find some photos for me to show her and pretend I took them?"

    At the mention of merely _suggesting_ that Kimiko should introduce Ji Woo to her brother, Bruce's mouth quirked into a frown. If she wanted to pick up the pace--and they definitely did need to pick up the pace, that was another thing--making vague suggestions to Kimiko wouldn't cut it. This angle of attack had seemed like a great plan on paper, but more and more, Bruce could see that it wasn't going to work out. As a matter of fact, he was beginning to think it would be better to take matters into his own hands. She’d mentioned that the boy was eager to help them out, right? Maybe Bruce could try using him to speed things along.

    "Yeah, that sounds like a great plan," he told her, putting on a smile even though she continued not to look at him. "You just keep doing what you're doing, and we'll get there soon enough."

    That night, while Ji Woo was passed out asleep on the couch after one too many beers even for her, Bruce flicked the light on inside their shared bedroom and opened the closet door. The light spilled into the closet as it swung open with a creak, illuminating the half-asleep face of the young man sitting inside with his back against the wall. Bruce cleared his throat as loudly as possible; Tommy snapped to attention with a startled grunt and raised his head.

    "Is it time?" he asked. "Are we leaving?"

    "Not just yet, son," Bruce told him. "But I do need your help with something. You know the guy we're looking for, to help with our big plan?"

    Tommy nodded. Shooting him his best approximation of a fatherly smile, Bruce knelt down and reached over to ruffle his hair.

    "Turns out, that guy is a real slippery bastard," he said. "I'm gonna need you to take me directly to him. Do you think you can manage that?"

    "I… I think so," Tommy said. "Do you know his address, or…?"

    "Nope, no address," Bruce said (if he knew the target's address, he and Ji Woo wouldn't have had to concoct this whole featherbrained scheme to begin with; they could've just broken in and taken him by force like the old days). "But--" He reached into the pocket of his faded bluejeans and took out a folded-up, faded scrap of paper. "I do have a photo."

    The photo in question was an old newspaper clipping--to be more specific, a newspaper ad for some business called "dial-a-hero". There were two men in the photo; the guy they were after was circled with red marker. The other guy, if Bruce had his information right, was the time-traveler who had disappeared a few years back. He blew some dust off the photo, smoothed a few creases out with his thumb, and handed it to Tommy.

    Almost immediately, Bruce realized that he had made a huge mistake. Tommy's breath hitched the instant his eyes fell onto the photo. He stared at it with wide eyes, then glanced up at Bruce, then back at the photo. As his gaze flickered back and forth, he let out a quiet whimper. Shoulders tensing, Bruce put on the biggest smile he could manage and jostled Tommy's shoulder. Flinching, Tommy dropped the photo and grabbed his head in his hands. After a few seconds, his heavy breathing slowed to normal, and he looked back at Bruce with what could only be described as a haunted expression.

    Unease wormed in Bruce's gut. Why the hell had looking at a photo had such an effect on the kid? Unless…

    "That's my dad," Tommy blurted. As soon as the words left his mouth, his face fell, like he was realizing something he would rather not have known. "I mean… _you're_ my dad; I know that," he said quickly, not sounding like he believed himself at all. "But… the man in the photo… there's something so familiar about him. I feel like I know him."

    "This guy?" Bruce asked, picking up the photo and pointing to their target. Tommy shook his head. "The little twerp with the glasses, then."

    "Don't call him that!" Tommy exclaimed, and a dawning horror swept over Bruce as he saw tears forming in the kid's eyes. If the man in the photo had been this important to Tommy, the effect of Bruce's powers on him could wear off at any minute.

    Gritting his teeth, Bruce clapped Tommy on the shoulder and stood up, tucking the newspaper clipping back into his pocket. How the hell was he supposed to have known that their target's late friend was their captive's goddamn _dad_? (He figured it was safe to assume that the kid was adopted, but still. He'd seen firsthand how strong a bond with even an adoptive parent could be--it had been the reason why he and Ji Woo worked alone now.)

    "You know, son, I'm gonna give you a minute to mull it over," he said, keeping his gaze on Tommy as he slowly pushed the closet door closed. "And when I come back, you had better have figured out that the guy in the photo is someone you've never met before. Got it?"

    He heard Tommy's muffled "got it" just as the door slid shut with a _click._ Once he was out of Tommy's line of sight, Bruce allowed his face to fall into a scowl. Turning his back on the closet door, he took the newspaper clipping back out and tore it into shreds, which he then scattered on the bedroom floor. First Ji Woo had to go fall in love, and now the kid was on the verge of getting his real memories back? At this rate, Bruce would have to quit relying on others for aid and just get the damn job done himself.

* * *

 

    At 11:45 PM on Sunday night, Mohinder had yet to find a place to stop and spend the night. He had hit a rather long stretch of highway, and according to his map, the next town was two and a half hours' drive away. Drowsiness already clung to his senses, threatening to make him fall asleep at the wheel, so driving for that much longer seemed out of the question. In the passenger's seat, Claire appeared to have already drifted off. He supposed they would just have to pull over and sleep in the car.

    Mohinder pulled over and came to a stop at the side of the road, then turned the car off and leaned back in his seat. As he sat there beneath the starlit sky, he reflected once again on Claire's strange condition. While he still had no clue what--or who--had caused it, he was developing a theory as to the common thread between the phrases she spoke. Many of them involved rhymes or some form of poetic meter, so it was safe to assume they were either snippets of poetry or song lyrics. He was leaning more toward the latter, and on top of that, he suspected that they were from songs by the same artist.

    But there would be time to think more about all of that in the morning. For now, it was best to just get some rest. Mohinder closed his eyes and let himself sink deeper into the car seat…

    …Only to be immediately pulled from the beginnings of slumber by a distant rumbling sound that was steadily growing in volume. Snapping back to attention, Mohinder looked in the rearview mirror to see a pair of headlights approaching from behind. _Ah. Just another traveler--perhaps even someone else on a road trip._ Mohinder settled back down and tried to drift off again. However, something about the sound of the approaching vehicle set off an alarm in his brain. Rather than simply speeding past, it sounded like it was slowing down. But why?

    He looked back at the rearview mirror, watching the other car's movement, and a chill ran through him as the car turned toward where he was pulled over. They weren't just two ships passing in the night--this person was after him. Or perhaps, Mohinder realized with a pang of fright as he glanced at the young woman in the seat next to him, they were after Claire.

    Heartbeat quickening, Mohinder stuck the key in the ignition and turned the car back on. No sooner had the vehicle rumbled to life than he slammed his foot on the brakes and, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, wrenched it to the side. The vehicle lurched away from its previous position with a shudder--just as the other vehicle drew to a stop right next to where it had been parked. Almost immediately, the other vehicle began to move again, following Mohinder back onto the road. Mohinder kept his eyes on the rearview mirror as he took off down the highway at what he was sure was well above the speed limit.

    Next to him, Claire let out a startled, sleepy murmur--the sudden motion of the vehicle must have jerked her awake. He couldn't spare the time to look over at her, but he caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, craning her head to look out the window at the car behind them. She gasped and grabbed his arm, nearly causing him to twist the steering wheel and drive them off the road. He cursed under his breath but kept driving without stopping to berate her. The vehicle was closing in on them and there wasn't time for discussion, only for him to press his foot down even harder on the brakes and pray that no other vehicles--or pedestrians, or wildlife--should appear.

    "Then he saw Godzilla sneaking up from behind!" she exclaimed. "And he reached for his gun, which he just couldn't find…"

    "Yes, I'm well aware of the approaching vehicle," he told her through gritted teeth. "And sadly, I don't happen to have a gun, or any sort of weapon, on hand."

     _It's a pity your father isn't here_ , he thought, but decided to keep the remark to himself. No doubt Claire was thinking the same thing.

    Behind them, the other vehicle was rapidly closing the distance between them. He still couldn't tear his eyes from the rearview mirror, but he could imagine the sight of Claire's wide, frantic eyes as her breath quickened.

    "Chop-chop, don't want to be late," she urged him as the distance between the vehicles dropped to less than a metre.

    "I'm driving as fast as I can!" he snapped. "I'm already well over the speed limit, as you can see--"

    He fell silent as, without warning, Claire reached up and grabbed the rearview mirror. She tugged it down to point it at herself, and after staring at it intently for a few seconds, she gasped. He was about to demand just what she thought she was doing when he looked over at her and saw the look of dawning realization in her eyes. It was something close to horror, but almost worse: it was a look of betrayal.

    "Claire?" he asked, his voice coming out as a whisper. "Do you recognize the driver?"

    Before she could answer, the distinctive _bang_ of a shotgun rang out from behind them, and the car's rear window shattered. Something whizzed past Mohinder's head, just millimetres away from scraping against his skin, and a bullet landed with a heavy thunk in the dashboard. Sparks flew up at the site of the impact; Mohinder flinched, withdrawing his hands from the steering wheel.

    He turned to ask Claire if she was alright, only to see her unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. With a spike of panic, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back into her seat as her seatbelt slid off and she started to stand up. She shot him an indignant look.

    "We're going--" He spared a quick glance at the speedometer, only to find that it was sizzling and the readout was fluctuating. "We're moving extremely quickly! You can't just jump out of a moving vehicle; you'll be killed!"

    "No, I won't!"

    As the words left her mouth, Claire blinked, looking startled at what she had said. Then she cleared her throat and continued:

    "I'm the indestructible girl, remember? I can't get hurt. Or even if I don't have my powers anymore, it's worth the risk. I--I have to try to talk to him," she added, her steely voice faltering with a hitch of emotion. "He wouldn't go after me with the intent to hurt me. I'm sure he wouldn't!"

    Without giving Mohinder a chance to reply, she jerked away from his grasp at the same time that she yanked the door open. Just then, another gunshot rang out, and Mohinder ducked as a bullet flew over his head and shattered the front window. Claire froze in place at the sound of the gun, halfway out of the car but still keeping a firm hold on the door handle. Shards of glass sprayed into the car, pelting him. Wincing, he slowed the car down and undid his own seatbelt. Perhaps Claire had the right idea about getting out of the car--outrunning their pursuer was clearly a pointless endeavor in any case--but he would prefer they not do it while going well over the speed limit.

     "Mohinder, are you alright?" she asked, shouting to be heard over the wind rushing by outside the car. As they drew to a halt at the side of the road, the noise died down.

    "Yes, I'm fine… for now," he said. "Congratulations on getting your regular speech functions back, by the way."

    "Heh, thanks."

    She started to say something else, but the sound of her voice was drowned out by two more gunshots. One of them found its mark in the back of Mohinder's headrest; the other missed the car altogether and left a dent in a nearby traffic sign. Heart speeding up again, Mohinder tilted the rearview mirror back toward himself and saw the other vehicle, now also parked, just a few feet behind them. The driver, a rather unremarkable young caucasian man with medium-short light hair, was leaning out the window, shotgun in hand. As Mohinder watched, he took aim and fired again, once again directing the shot at his side of the vehicle rather than Claire's.

    "I believe he's trying to avoid hitting you," Mohinder remarked as he dodged another bullet. "Not that it makes much difference, as he doesn't seem to be a very good aim."

    "Yeah, well, that's one thing, at least," Claire muttered. She glanced over her shoulder at the man in the other vehicle, and although her hand remained on the door handle, she no longer looked so sure about jumping out to confront him. "I just don't get why he'd do something like this. He was always so--"

    She broke off as one final shot resounded from behind them. This one, Mohinder realized with a surge of horror, _was_ aimed at her--perhaps not intentionally, but heading her way nonetheless. Without thinking, he leapt up from his seat and pushed her out of the car, out of the bullet's trajectory. She shrieked as she tumbled out of the car door and onto the grass at the side of the road, but she was unhurt. Mohinder heaved a sigh of relief just as the bullet found its mark.

    The shot hit him in the arm--not as immediately deadly as the head or the chest, but any man of science knew full well that being shot anywhere could prove fatal without proper treatment. He could feel his bones splintering at the impact, and he bit down on his tongue to keep from screaming as pain shot through him. The force knocked him back against the dashboard, and he slumped onto the floor of the car, head spinning. Outside the car, he heard Claire yell something, and then he heard a car door slam shut and a male voice say something in return. He tried to make out their words, but… he couldn't quite seem to concentrate.

    Gritting his teeth against the searing pain in his arm, he raised his head and looked out the open door at Claire, who was getting to her feet and staring down the driver from the other vehicle. She blurred in and out of focus before his eyes. She and the other driver kept yelling back and forth, and then suddenly he ran toward her with his shotgun raised. Mohinder opened his mouth to yell in protest, but he couldn't even quite make out the sound of his own voice. His head was still spinning, no longer from the initial pain of being shot but rather from blood loss. Indeed, the carpeted gray surface of the car floor was now wet and sticky with his blood. _How unpleasant._

The last thing he saw was the two figures colliding outside the car, and if another shotgun blast rang out and a splatter of blood filled the chill night air, he was past the point of being able to tell.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking to a new day of twists and turns, our heroes (and villains) just might wish they had stayed in bed a little longer... okay, this metaphor is nothing, but several people wake up in this one. Claire finally gets to go home. Tracy confronts a familiar face. Micah experiences an epic gaming moment.

    The doctors must have pumped her full of a hell of a lot of drugs, because Barbara's memories of her transportation to the hospital were a blur. All she knew was that she was there now, staring up at a piercingly bright florescent light and the faces of surgeons who appeared to be concernedly murmuring to each other, although their voices seemed muffled when they met Barbara's ears. Her whole head felt like it was stuffed up with cotton balls, slowing down her thought process as she tried to remember how she had gotten there.

    There was… there'd been that evo, she remembered, and with that something in her mind snapped her further into clarity. She had gotten rid of the one, and then the other had come asking after the first one, and…

    "That bastard," she groaned; the doctors stared down at her with wide, startled gazes. "I'm gonna kill him… damn evo."

    One of the doctors, an older middle eastern woman with a scar across the bridge of her nose, turned to her compatriots and whispered something. The other doctors nodded, and the one who'd spoken reached for a syringe while the others held Barbara in place. She was still too sluggish to put up a fight as more sedatives were pumped into her system, draining her consciousness away as quickly as she'd regained it.

    The next time Barbara woke up, she was in a hospital bed with a bunch of tubes stuck in her. The tubes were hooked up to a machine that was softly and steadily beeping. All the doctors were gone save for a nurse who was sitting in a bedside chair, watching over Barbara with a clipboard in their lap. She couldn't tell whether they were a man or a woman, but in any case, they looked pretty young. Upon Barbara looking over at them, the nurse perked up and shot her a big smile reminiscent of a customer service worker.

    "Good to see you awake," they began. "I'll admit, we were a little worried about you for a while there. You've been unconscious for almost three days straight, you know," they added, speaking in a gentle tone but with a slight grimace. "The injuries you sustained in that car crash were pretty serious."

    "Car crash?" Barbara echoed. Although still slightly groggy, she felt sober this time around--sober enough for the nurse's words not to sit right with her. "That's bullshit! I wasn't in a car crash; that _freak_ flung me across the goddamned street with his mind!"

    "Woah, slow down," the nurse said, holding up a hand as they scribbled something down on their clipboard. "I was informed that your car had accidentally hit a traffic pole. You're saying a person with superhuman abilities did this to you?"

    "Person with superhuman abilities? Feh," Barbara spat. "I'm tired of all this political correctness. It was a goddamn evo, and he--"

    "Now, hold on," the nurse interjected. "I don't appreciate that kind of language. My nephew has powers, and…"

    They trailed off, biting their lip, as Barbara snarled at them. _Good_. She didn't have time for polite hospital staff; she had to get up and out of there and hunt down that evo. She tried to sit up, only for a sharp ache to shoot up her spine. As she fell back, cursing under her breath, she noticed with a pang of contempt that her neck was all swaddled up in a cast. Not to mention all those damn tubes… they were really set on trying to restrain her, weren't they?

    Frowning, the nurse jotted down a couple more notes on their clipboard, then set it down and walked over to stand next to Barbara's hospital bed.

    "Ma'am, with all due respect, this kind of behaviour isn't permissible," they said. "You need to lie down and stay still, for your own health."

    "Oh yeah? And what if I don't?" Barbara challenged. "Are you gonna kill me?"

    She cackled, relishing in the fear that flashed in the nurse's eyes. Then, recalling what the first evo had said to her before she killed him, she scowled and added:

    "They said I was one of them. One of them! Can you believe that? But I'm not! I'll never be like them!"

    "Er, actually, Ma'am, the doctors ran some tests on you," the nurse stammered (they had a name tag, Barbara noticed now, but she couldn't be damned to bother reading it). "You definitely have powers. I think they said, um… retractable venomous claws?"

    "What?!" Barbara shrieked. Ignoring the pain this time, she pushed herself into a sitting position and threw her sheets aside. "No! I'm not, I'm not, I'm _not_!"

    Gulping, the nurse took a couple steps back, gaze flitting to a button mounted on the wall. Barbara hadn't spent much time in hospitals--she'd always had impressively good health, if she dared say so herself--but she guessed that the button, if pressed, would alert the attention of more nurses and doctors. _But you're not getting away that easily_ , she thought. Nobody could call her an evo and get away with it.

    Barbara wasn't entirely sure how she tore the tubes off her body so quickly, or how easily she shredded the cast around her neck. The pain kicked in as she lunged to her feet and charged toward the nurse, but the adrenaline rush drowned it out. She would make them pay for saying such a horrible thing to her. She would make _everyone_ pay.

* * *

 

    After a few minutes flying and thinking things over, Peter decided that the first thing to do would be to help Tracy. He didn't have any kind of container to use to transport her to a hospital, so he wasn't sure exactly how to get her there without her turning back into a solid--but she would have to go back to her humanoid form in order to receive a blood transfusion anyway, so he supposed it wouldn't make much difference in the long run. As for where to take her for the operation… Atikokan had a general hospital, but from what he'd heard, it wasn't a very good one with a lot of competent staff. He might be better off flying a few extra miles and taking Tracy to the hospital in Thunder Bay instead.

    When he set down at the shore of Lake Ghiacciato, it was still nighttime. A chill wind rippled across the surface of the lake, ruffling Peter's bangs as he knelt down beside the water. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to go about making his presence known. The beach was completely empty apart from him, of course, so… maybe he could just talk to her, the way he had the other day. It wasn't like anyone was around to overhear. He cleared his throat, but just as he was about to speak up, the water in front of him began to swirl around and rose into a vaguely person-shaped form.

    "Why are you here again?" Tracy asked--not confrontational, but with what sounded like genuine puzzlement in her watery voice. "I told you, I don't want your help. Go home."

    "But I can help you," he said. "I _want_ to help you. You're my friend, and…" He gulped, swallowing back a bitter taste rising in his mouth. "I just found out that I don't have as many friends left as I thought I did."

    At this, Tracy's liquid form swirled with interest, and she extended herself to lean in toward him.

    "What are you talking about? Did somebody betray you?"

     "No, I… well, yeah, it sort of feels that way, to be honest," Peter sighed. "A few days ago, just after you pulled that needle out of my head, I spoke to my mother. She told me everything that had happened since Sylar and I left, and…"

    "Aw, shit," she muttered, a sympathetic tone in her voice. Her form dissolved back into free-flowing water, and she receded back into the surface of the lake. "You didn't know about--about Claire and all that, did you?"

    Grimacing, he shook his head. A fresh wave of grief threatened to overwhelm him as he thought back to the way that, nearly a decade ago now, Angela had advised him not to tell anyone before he left. Because of that, he hadn't gotten to say goodbye to anyone properly. He could go back now if he wanted, and see some of his old friends again--Mohinder, Noah, Hesam, Emma--but he wouldn't be able to see everyone. There was no way of getting closure.

    Maybe Sylar was right, and there was no way he could have helped them. But he could help Tracy now, and he wasn't going to let her convince him otherwise. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Peter scrubbed the beginnings of tears away from his eyes and fixed his gaze firmly on the surface of the water.

    "Reform into your solid shape, and I'll carry you to the nearest hospital and give you a blood transfusion," he told her. Before she could object, he added: "I know you'd die, but it'll be okay. I have all the same powers as Sylar right now, which includes a healing ability. If you get a transfusion of my blood, you'll recover, even from death."

    The waters of the lake roiled for a few moments; Peter crossed his legs and waited for her response. If she turned him down, he honestly had no idea what he would do. He didn't want to force her to do anything she was dead set against, but… he _had_ to help her! Every fibre of his being compelled him to do so, not just because it was the right thing to do, but also because he hadn't been able to help his friends when they needed him the most a few years ago. This wouldn't make up for that--it wouldn't even come close--but it would be something, at least. Something to ease the guilt that had been weighing him down since Angela had told him everything that had transpired in his absence.

    Finally, after what felt like hours but could only have been a minute at most, a watery tendril emerged from the lake and reached up to wrap around Peter's wrist in a sort of strange handshake. Despite the negative emotions sitting heavy in his heart, he couldn't help but chuckle a little at the gesture.

    "Alright, you can give me a transfusion," Tracy said. "But I'd rather put off dying for as long as possible, even if it is temporary, so how about I don't turn solid again until we're at the hospital?"

    "Deal," Peter said. "How do I hold onto you, though?"

    "Who said anything about you holding onto me?" she asked. "I'm going to hold onto you."

    As she spoke, the tendril coming out of the lake slid further out, curling around Peter's arm like a snake. It (no, not it-- _she_ ) separated from the surface of the lake with a soft pop, and all of a sudden, the lake's waters grew still and substantially less cold to the touch. As Tracy wrapped her liquid form around him, Peter smiled. Although he had never done anything quite like this in the past, something about it hit him with a sharp pang of nostalgia. For a moment, it felt like the old days weren't so far out of reach after all.

    "Okay, I'll try to fly fairly slowly, but you're going to have to hold on tight," he warned her as he coiled his muscles and prepared to take off. "Think you can manage?"

    "Oh, please, who do you think I am? Of course I can manage," she said. "Now, are you going to get me over there, or are we just going to stand around talking all night?"

    With a soft chuckle, he sprung up into the air and took flight. Tracy let out a little yelp as he zoomed into the clouds, and although he wasn't one to say _I told you so_ , he did glance down at her liquid form and shoot her a bemused glance. However, as he navigated eastward through the sky, he found that, just as she said, Tracy clung onto him quite sturdily. During the flight, Peter tried a couple times to make conversation, but he got the hint that Tracy wasn't interested fairly quickly.

    "So, uh, how have you been liking this weather?"

    "Well, it's weather. What more is there to say?"

    "Had any interesting run-ins with campers lately?"

    "Not really."

    "Alright, then…" Peter sighed, running some mental equations to see if she would mind if he talked about his own life at all. He guessed that she probably wouldn't be too thrilled, so he kept quiet, and they flew along in silence.

* * *

 

    When Micah walked back into Otomo's Gaming Paradise on Monday morning, Miko's relief at his return was accompanied by a twinge of anxiety. He looked well for a guy who had apparently gotten beaten and stabbed just a few days beforehand, although he winced when he accidentally banged his shoulder against the door on the way in. Apart from that, he had a bandaid on his cheek, and she was sure that looking under his clothes would reveal some not-quite-fully-healed bruises, but she wasn't about to do that. And he was smiling, which was obviously a good sign. In fact, as he stepped inside the shop and locked eyes with Miko, his face lit up like a neon sign and he waved at her from across the store. Something mildly uncomfortable stirred in her gut, but she returned his smile and wave nonetheless. She _was_ glad to see him back on his feet, it was just…

    …Well, they had something to talk about, was all. Something regarding the call she had received from the hospital staff.

    "You're sure you're fit to work today?" she asked him as he walked up to the counter. She watched the motions of his legs and feet carefully; it didn't look like he was limping, but sometimes people were good at concealing their pain. "If not, you can stay home and come in on Wednesday instead. I won't mind, I promise."

    "Nah, I'm fine, honest," he assured her. Brushing a ringlet out of his eyes (she wondered if he planned on getting a haircut anytime soon, or if he was making an effort to grow it out) he looked around the shop as though scanning for a job to do. "Um, can I get started by putting away those?"

    Miko followed his gaze toward the back of the shop, where several defunct game consoles were sitting on the bottom shelf beneath rows of other, more up-to-date consoles. She had meant to put them away herself, but she kept putting it off.

    "Sure, you can do that," she said. "Just take them into the backroom and put them--"

    She broke off, throat clenching as she realized what she had just said. Her gaze flickered over to the door to her backroom--closed, but she had forgotten to lock it--then back over at Micah, who regarded her with an expectant but increasingly puzzled look.

    "Uh, where do I put them, boss?" he asked, brows knitting together slightly.

    "You, um!" Miko cleared her throat and tried to push down the sudden anxiety springing up within her. "You put them over by the other old and broken consoles. And after that, maybe we can try to wipe down the shelves together before customers start showing up."

    Micah nodded and walked over to where the defunct consoles were gathering dust. As Miko watched him pick up a small stack of the consoles and move them toward the backroom, she told herself that it would be fine. He had a task to do, and he wasn't the type to snoop around when he wasn't supposed to--or then again, maybe he was. She wasn't sure she knew him well enough to make that call. But he was definitely an honest worker, and he probably wouldn't let himself get distracted from the job at hand. Hopefully.

    Not that it would make any difference if he did, she reminded herself. It wasn't like there was a big glowing sign in the backroom reading "MIKO CAN GO INSIDE ONE OF THE VIDEO GAMES IN THIS ROOM!" The game in question was buried under a pile of other games, and the battery on the console had almost certainly run dry by now, and even _if_ Micah found it and even _if_ it was still playable, it would just seem like a normal game to him, as it would to anyone else who didn't know Miko's secret. She had nothing to worry about, really.

    And, sure enough, Micah went in and out of the backroom without incident. He made four trips in total to get rid of all the defunct consoles, and by the end of it he simply ducked behind the counter to grab some gloves, a roll of paper towels, and a spray bottle of cleaning fluid without comment. Miko gathered up the same items for herself, and the two set to work cleaning the shelves--starting with the one the now-disposed-of consoles had been piled up on, where the dust was caked on so thick you could cut it with a knife. For a few minutes, the only sound was the soft spritz of the spray bottle and the squeak of paper towels against the shelves. Normally Miko liked to listen to the radio at work, but she had forgotten to turn it on that morning, and now they were working in awkward silence.

    Eventually, Micah spoke up and broke the silence, which filled Miko with relief until she took in what he said.

    "So, why were you so nervous about the backroom?"

    "Nervous?" she practically tittered. "What do you mean? I wasn't nervous."

    "No, you definitely were. I could tell," he said, "which is actually really weird, because normally I'm not good at reading people, like, at all. I guess you could say I'm, uh, better with machines than people. But with you… I don't know. Somehow, you feel almost like a machine or an electronic device to me."

    Miko's eyebrows and heart rate both rocketed up. For a split-second, all she could think was, _oh god he knows my secret and he's going to expose me and I'm never going to be able to have a normal life and put the past behind me no matter how hard I try_. Then Micah blushed and quickly clarified:

    "By which I mean, y'know, you're easy to understand. I'm not saying you're, like, a robot or anything. It'd be cool if you were, though," he went on. "Imagine that: 'my boss the secret robot!' Don't you think that would make a cool premise for a comic book series or something?"

    Well, at least he had said "robot" and not "not-exactly-real person with the ability to go inside a video game". Miko forced herself to laugh at his remark.

    "Yeah, probably," she said. "Why, do you want to be a comic artist someday?"

    He shrugged. "I mean, it'd be awesome if I could be one--that or a video game designer. But I don't really think it's going to happen."

    "I see…" Miko glanced up from the shelf she was cleaning to meet Micah's gaze, only to find that his own gaze was fixed on a stain he was determinedly scrubbing at. Now that she thought about it, she realized that he often didn't make eye contact--which was fine, but it did strike her as a bit unusual. "So, is this your first job, or…?"

    "No, I--" Micah broke off, his mouth quirking into a frown. "Uh, yeah, actually, I guess this is my first real job."

    "Really? What have you been doing up until now?"

    "Volunteer work and political activism, mostly," he said. "And, well, I've been working odd jobs here and there to get by."

    "Political activism?"

    "Yeah. Like, for all sorts of marginalized communities, but with a focus on the rights of people with powers."

    At the mention of people with powers, Miko's heart sped up all over again. He paused for a moment after saying this, and now he did look up and stare intently at Miko's face, as if to gauge her reaction. Despite the circumstances, the eye contact lasted just long enough to make her cheeks heat up.

    It felt as if she was being attacked on two fronts by Micah, both without him even knowing it. On the one hand, there was the secret of her identity as a kind-of, sort-of person with powers (in the sense that she definitely had powers but was not, in the most technical terms, actually a person). On the other hand, and somehow managing to seem more terrifying despite being leagues more trivial, was the matter of the call she had received from the hospital staff on Saturday morning. Those simple words had plagued her all throughout the weekend, leaving her to wonder which party had been responsible for the miscommunication: "your boyfriend is being kept overnight in case of further complications."

    "You don't, like… have a problem with that sort of thing, do you?" Micah asked, with a faint warble of painstakingly familiar anxiety in his voice. That warble was the way Miko felt every time the topic of people with powers came up--would the people you were talking to condemn the group without knowing you belonged to it? "People with powers, I mean."

    "No, no, of course not," Miko assured him. Then, unable to hold the question in any longer: "You realize we're not a couple, right?"

    Micah stared blankly at her for a moment. Then he slowly blinked, and his gaze clouded with confusion.

    "Of course we're not a couple," he said. "Why would we be?"

    "Okay, good," Miko said, her shoulders slumping with relief. "Because I--I do already have a boyfriend, just so you know. He's studying abroad right now, so we don't see each other much anymore, but we're still together," she went on. She was well aware that she was rambling, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. "And, you see, while you were at the hospital, one of the staff called to tell me about it and they referred to you as my boyfriend. Isn't that odd? I wonder how that happened. But I just thought, with the way you always smile at me like that, and talking about how I'm 'easier to understand' and so on, I just thought…"

    She trailed off, letting out a short sigh. Micah had already returned his gaze to the dusty shelves, but she could tell that he was still listening. She picked her own spray bottle back up and applied some cleaning fluid to the shelf in front of her, then tore off some paper towels and got to work. She couldn't remember if she had already done this shelf or not, but if she had, she must not have done a very good job. There was still plenty of dust and grime caked into the corners of the shelves, even if most of the surface was free of debris.

    "Yeah, I think I know how that happened," Micah said as he moved from a sitting to a crouching position to clean a slightly higher shelf. "I mentioned you to one of the nurses, and I was about to say you're my boss, but she cut me off before I could get there."

    "Huh," said Miko, suddenly feeling like a fifty-pound weight had just been lifted off her back. "That's good to know."

    She thought about saying something more, like how she was glad that Micah didn't feel that way about her because she valued their budding friendship as it was, but she decided against it. That would probably be inappropriate boss/employee conversation. Instead, she turned her attention back to cleaning the shelves and tried not to worry about what Micah might find the next time he looked in her backroom.

* * *

 

    Angela awoke, panting, in the middle of the night from another dream about that long hallway and something colliding with her neck. Once she had caught her breath and the immediate feeling of panic the dream had brought her subsided, she grumbled to herself, rolled over, and tried to fall back asleep. She'd been having that dream all week now, and she still had no information on what exactly was going to happen and what she--or rather, the people who were young and spritely enough to go out there and try to save the world--could do to prevent it. All she knew was: hallway with frankly hideous wallpaper; gunshots (or at least the possibility of them; they weren't always a constant); blood; something hitting her in the neck at the end of the dream and waking her up. It didn't give her much to go on.

    At least she knew how to prevent one unpleasant aspect of her dreams. If she didn't want to get her head severed, all she had to do was avoid going to that particular hallway. It didn't look like any hallway she'd seen in her lifetime, so she didn't imagine it would be particularly difficult to avoid going. Perhaps in the morning she could search for that type of wallpaper on the internet, email a picture of the closest match to Noah, and advise him to steer clear of such a place as well. For now, she just wanted to get some decent sleep that wasn't addled with prophetic dreams.

    She drifted back off fairly quickly, but unfortunately, she didn't exactly get the peaceful slumber she hoped for. Really, she should have known better than to expect to get a good night's sleep at this point.

*

     _Noah was lying motionless, facedown on the ground, with blood pooling around him. Standing over him was a slender, diminutive figure with sallow skin that appeared to be rotting in several places--or, upon closer look, not rotting at all. They had already rotted, and now their body was slowly putting itself back together. One of their hands was raised, and there was blood dripping from it, although they didn't appear to be holding any sort of weapon._

_Angela could only see the figure from behind, but then her viewpoint in the dream shifted, like a camera angle in a film. Now she saw another figure, hunched over Noah's motionless form. A curtain of blonde hair with fading streaks of black dye hung over their face, but recognition nonetheless settled like winter snow in Angela's mind as she took in the familiar shape of the sobbing figure. It was--but, no, it couldn't be. She had_ prophetic _dreams, not dreams about things of the past. And yet…_

_In a slow, shaky motion, the hunched-over figure raised their head and climbed to their feet, glaring at the zombie-like person across from them. Her face was unmistakable, impossible as it was. Angela hadn't seen a gun in her hand before, but she had one now, which she pointed at the person standing before her. Through gritted teeth and with tears in her eyes, Claire spoke up, and Angela looked on in disbelief as her granddaughter said:_

_"Brody's angry, he's all like fuck it!"_

_She fired the gun, and with that, the dream ended as abruptly as a TV screen cutting to black._

*

    As she awoke, Angela's head spun. That was Claire, she _knew_ it was, and her dreams didn't lie, but… how? And why on earth had she said such a peculiar phrase when in such an obvious state of distress? And, for God's sake, what was the story behind that living half-rotted corpse? It was all too bizarre to have been real. Not prophetic at all, then, she decided. Just a regular dream--a manifestation of her anxieties, perhaps.

    Letting out a long, rattling sigh, she rolled over, flipped her pillow over, and took one more shot at getting a bit of peaceful sleep.

* * *

 

    Claire's ears were ringing as she woke up, and there was this unpleasant throbbing feeling in her head. She realized with a jolt of existential horror that it was pain--a dull pain, but pain nonetheless. Groaning, she brought her hand up to brush some hair out of her eyes, and grimaced when her hand came away slightly bloody. She had already figured as much, but the confirmation that she was probably permanently without her powers was… upsetting. Yeah, it was real fucking upsetting. For as much as she had viewed herself as a freak back in high school, she had become pretty dependent on her powers over the years. Without them, she would have to start being a lot more careful.

    As her senses finishing returning to her, she noticed that it felt like she was being jostled around. Taking in her surroundings, she found that she was in the backseat of a moving car. She wasn't restrained at all--not even a seatbelt, which explained why it was a bit of a bumpy ride. Out the window, dawn was breaking over the horizon. They were driving down a city street, past rows of typical suburban houses. The car's driver had his back to her, of course, but she could recognize him from any angle, just as she recognized the car she was in. It was the very same car that, the night before, had pursued her and…

    …Mohinder. Oh, god, was he okay?! A knot of dread settled cold and hard in Claire's gut as she thought back to the last thing she remembered before passing out. He had pushed her out of the car--probably by accident, judging by the apologetic look that had flashed across his face--throwing himself in front of a bullet in the process. She hadn't been able to tell where it had struck him, but she had heard a sickening crack, and he had fallen to the floor of the car and not gotten up again. The next thing she knew, the barrel of the shotgun had connected with her forehead, and she'd blacked out.

    Now, as the car slowed down to round a corner, Claire raised her head and locked eyes with the driver in the rearview mirror. The instant they made eye contact, the harsh twist of anger and confusion in Claire's heart was a thousand times more painful than the throbbing in her head from where had had struck her. Somehow, it was made even worse when guilt flashed in his eyes and he quickly averted his gaze. She wanted to demand to know what had gotten into his head and compelled him to resort to violence like that. Didn't he know that she would have gone with him if he'd just asked her to? If he had just _talked_ to her… she would have listened. He was her little brother, after all.

    "Hi, Claire," Lyle greeted her wearily. There was a heaviness to his voice that she had never heard in it before. "It's nice to see you back among the living… uh, so to speak."

    For a moment, any anger that Claire held evaporated. Looking at her younger brother in the rearview mirror, she could see bags under his eyes and stubble around his chin. He had grown up so much since the last time she had seen him. Knowing that she had been gone for a long time was one thing, but seeing for herself the difference that time had made? It was positively heartrending. For the first time since her waking up, it truly sunk in that her family had been without her for _years_ , with all evidence pointing to her being gone forever. Even though she knew it was dumb, because dying hadn't been her fault, she felt a pang of remorse for having put everyone through such an ordeal.

    Then the car drove over a pothole, and Claire's head bumped up against the back of her seat, sending a fresh jolt of pain through her skull. With that, her anger flowed back into her, not entirely replacing guilt but clearing some of it away to make room. Regardless of how much her brother had missed her, that didn't give him the right to shoot at her! For all she knew, Mohinder could have been dead because of him!

    Lyle must have seen her expression change, because he slowed the car down and turned in his seat to look at her. "Claire, what's wrong?"

    "You did this to us," Claire snapped, suppressing a grimace as she realized that the words coming out of her mouth were a few degrees off from what she was trying to say. Her speech returning to normal the night before must not have been permanent. "Why did you do this to us?"

    "I was trying to help you," he said, staring at her with wide, plaintive eyes. "Claire, I--I always knew you were alive, even when everyone else refused to believe it. I mean, you dying? That doesn't even make sense. You've survived getting shot, and jumping from crazy heights, and…" His voice hitched, and despite her anger, Claire found herself reaching forward to lay a comforting hand on his arm. "Everyone said to just give up looking, and that you were gone for good--even Mom and Dad, can you believe that? But I never stopped believing, Claire. I knew you had to be out there somewhere."

    "The news reporters reported that I died," Claire murmured.

    She tried to find the words to explain to him that she really _had_ died, and that she still didn't know what had brought her back, but it certainly hadn't been the healing powers which she no longer possessed. However, to her frustration, she came up empty.

    "And now I find you, back in California, and you're in a car with some weirdo?" Lyle went on. "I figured he must have kidnapped you or brainwashed you or something."

    As he said this, the car rounded a corner onto yet another typical suburban street. However, Claire realized with a rush of excitement as she glanced out the window, this wasn't just any street. She knew exactly where they were headed. They were still a few blocks away, but there was only one reason Lyle could have been taking her this way. They were going home!

    "We've since disappeared," she said, turning back to her brother. "That is, until tonight."

    "Say, what's up with the way you're talking, anyway?" he asked.

    Claire tried to suppress a cringe. She had been kind of anticipating him asking that, but she had hoped he wouldn't notice. How could she explain what was wrong with her without furthering his incorrect impression that Mohinder was responsible?

    "And every word she said didn't make it across," she said after a moment's hesitation.

    Lyle chewed his bottom lip, brow furrowing. Outside the window, they passed by a convenience store with a faded sign outside advertising ice cream. Claire remembered going to that store when her family had first moved to Costa Verde, more than a decade ago now. At first it brought a warm feeling of comfort to her chest to see that the store was still there, but then she looked again and realized that the sign above the door displayed a different name. Things really did change, after all.

    "Say something else," Lyle told her. "Say something about… hmm." Looking back at him in the rearview mirror, she could see a faint glint in his eye, like he had a theory and was trying to test it. To her surprise, an almost mischievous tone crept into his voice as he said: "How about trucks? Yeah, say something about pickup trucks. Two of them, to be exact."

    "Two pickup trucks," Claire echoed, startled both by the choice of subject matter and by the fact that her voice supplied the right words. "One cylinder block, crush my body like a rock."

    Before she was all the way through that sentence, Lyle grinned. Then, slowing the car down even further, he leaned back in his seat and broke into laughter. Claire watched him with a faint twinge of bemusement, wondering what exactly was so funny.

    "I cannot believe," he managed to get out between outbursts of laughter, "That you're, like, cursed or whatever--to only speak in Lemon Demon lyrics. That's absolutely buckwild. I love it!"

    "Lemon… demon?"

    "Yeah, it's an artist," he explained, clearing his throat and straightening back up in his seat. He brought the car to a stop outside of a house-- _their_ house. They were home. "Kind of obscure, I guess? I dunno, the only reason I know his stuff is because Gr--" He broke off, shaking his head. "You know what, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you're back."

    At that, he turned to face Claire with a smile, and she couldn't help but smile as well as she met her little brother's gaze. Because he _was_ still her little brother, even with the bags around his eyes and stubble on his face, and regardless of the bad decisions he had made in his attempt to rescue her. He always would be. A rush of emotions swirled through her: joy at seeing her brother again, and the excitement of knowing that she would soon see her mother as well, mixed with sorrow and guilt for being away so long. _Never again_ , she swore to herself. _I'll never leave the people I love behind again._

    Then, before she could stop herself, she started laughing. It was stupid--nothing was funny. In fact, a lot of things still really sucked. But it wasn't amused laughter; it was hysterical laughter that bubbled up inside her and spilled out her mouth uncontrollably. Lyle gave her an odd look for a moment, but then he began chuckling again as well, and soon his near-maniacal laughter was as loud as her own. And they just kept on going without being able to stop, laughing away like a sitcom audience.

    This carried on for what felt like hours, although realistically it couldn't have been quite that long, to the point where Claire toppled over, sides aching, and rolled over onto her back. It was at that point, as she stared up at the car ceiling and gasped for breath, that her laughter finally subsided. She drew in two long, deep, shaky breaths and let them out slowly, feeling tears well up in her eyes and trying without success to blink them back.

    "Damn," she said, not realizing that she was speaking normally again until she was halfway through her sentence. "I sure do keep finding myself in bizarre situations, huh?"

* * *

 

    Dawn was breaking over the horizon in a shimmer of gold and magenta by the time the Thunder Bay skyline came into Tracy's view. Needless to say, it wasn't a city that had ever come up on her radar before--not too big, without many notable landmarks aside from a memorial for some guy who wasn't even _from_ Thunder Bay. That being said, as Peter dropped his altitude and flew lower to scan the city for its general hospital, she found herself somewhat captivated by the way the glint of the rising sun glistened off the waters of Lake Superior. To say that it was a bigger lake than Ghiacciato would be the understatement of the century. It was practically an inland sea. For a moment she found herself thinking, _if only I could have been trapped there instead._

    "It's pretty, huh?" Peter asked, turning to smile up at where Tracy was coiled around his shoulders.

    "It's just a lake," Tracy replied, trying her hardest to put a dismissive tone into her voice. "Come on, get me down there, will you?"

    Peter let out a thoughtful hum that made it sound like he didn't believe her, but he didn't press the issue. After looking around for a moment longer, he set his gaze on a large building near the centre of the town and began his descent.

    A few people on the streets stopped to glance up at Peter as he approached, but aside from a disgruntled glare or two, nobody seemed to take an interest in him. The world was used to people with powers, after all. If anyone noticed the spiral of water wrapped around him, they certainly didn't comment on it. Peter stopped to wave at a family leaving the hospital as he set down outside its doors; his shoulders slumped when the parents stuck their noses up and whispered something to their child that sounded a lot like anti-evo sentiment.

    "Don't pay them any mind," Tracy told him. "You can't please everyone, especially not when you're someone like us."

    "I know," Peter sighed. Brushing his hair back, he stared up at the building before them, then glanced back down at Tracy. "So, let's go in, then?"

    "You really didn't plan this out too well, did you?"

    "I guess not," he admitted. "It… well, it was all kind of spur-of-the-moment. Leaving, I mean."

    "Hold on," Tracy interjected, slithering down Peter's arm and raising herself into a semi-humanoid shape to look him in the eye. "Are you saying you left Sylar?"

    "No! I mean--I didn't _leave_ him, not like that," Peter said, although as he spoke, his eyes suddenly became overcast as though he were coming to an unfortunate realization. "At least, I didn't mean to. I still love him; I just had to get away from that cabin."

    "And he wasn't letting you leave, was he?"

    "It's not his fault," he said quickly. "Him and Ma were on the same page: it was for our own safety. But when I found out about everything that had happened when I was gone…"

    His voice wavered, and Tracy caught a glimpse of tears forming in his eyes. Quickly, he brought a hand up and scrubbed them away.

    "...The point is, I realized I had to be there for the people who need me. So, that's why I'm doing this now."

    If Tracy currently had a physical form, she would have frowned upon hearing that. As much as she appreciated Peter wanting to help her, his reason for it struck her as troubling. She had always thought he had a problem with putting others above himself, and if he was hoping to save her now in an effort to compensate for not saving other people, that could very easily put him down a dangerous path. Sure, right now it was a win-win, but what if Peter's next act of compensation was a little more self-sacrificial? She certainly wouldn't have put it past him.

    She couldn't just come out and say that to him, though. Chances were that his boyfriend had already said all that and more, and if any of that reasoning had worked, then he would still be in that idyllic cottage instead of standing outside the Thunder Bay General Hospital. And, as it happened, she wouldn't have gotten the chance to say it anyway, because just then she was yanked out of her thoughts as the doors swung open and a small cluster of doctors and nurses rushed outside, with a gaggle of screaming patients in tow.

    "Woah, hey!" Peter exclaimed as a nurse pushed past him. "What's going on here?"

    "Quick, get away from here!" one of the doctors cried as they ran by. "That woman--her claws--she's crazy!"

    A stricken look came over Peter's face. Tracy had no idea who the panicked hospital staff could have been referring to, but he clearly did. He whispered a name which Tracy couldn't quite make out, then pushed his way through the fleeing crowd like a swimmer going against the tide and ran into the hospital.

    Inside, a fire alarm blared; disorienting red and blue lights flashed in time with its wail. More hospital staff and patients scrambled through the halls, accompanied by staff from the in-hospital coffee shop and gift store, and several civilians. Pushing past Peter and Tracy without even seeming to notice them, they rushed out the doors, which some of the staff stayed back to hold open and let the civilians through. Before long, the two of them were the only ones left on the hospital's lower level. A prickling feeling of dread ran through Tracy, but she did her best to banish it. Whatever was going on in this hospital, she and Peter were pretty damn powerful. They could handle it.

    A maniacal, high-pitched scream rang out from somewhere inside the building, overpowering both the fire alarm and the panicked yells. Despite herself, Tracy shuddered, tightening her coiled grip around Peter's arm. That voice--it sounded just like her own.

    "Peter," she hissed in his ear as he ran, shoes echoing against the tiled floor, "Do you know who that doctor was talking about?"

    "I think so," he replied. "I met her in Atikokan. She was the one who--"

    He broke off, coming to a sudden halt. His eyes flickered upwards, and Tracy followed his gaze to see a staircase leading up to a second story. Standing at the top of the staircase, with one outstretched arm holding the limp body of a nurse by their bloodied collar, stood a woman. She wore a tattered, blood-soaked hospital gown; shredded bandages hung around her bruised neck. She had medium-short blond hair and a wild glint in her eye. Tracy bristled at the sight of her. Although she was a little too far away to tell, that woman looked almost like--

    Yes. Almost exactly the same as her, save for the hairstyle and a few facial piercings that Tracy was decidedly lacking. Tracy's mind rushed as she took in the sight. Could this have been the third clone Dr. Zimmerman had mentioned, so long ago now? But what was she doing there, of all places?

    The woman locked eyes with Peter and pulled her lips back into what could only be described as a snarl. She opened her hand and dropped the body she held; Peter gasped as it dropped several feet and hit the floor with a dull thunk. Now that both the woman's hands were free, something caught Tracy's eye: her fingernails were long, sharp, and glowing in a toxic shade of violet.

    "Goddamn it, you evo freak!" the woman spat. "Why won't you just stay dead?"

    "Hey," Tracy said sharply, slithering down off of Peter and taking on a slightly more human shape on the tiled floor--although she remained liquid. The strange woman balked at her appearance. "I don't know who the hell you are, but it's pretty plain to see that you're just as much of an 'evo' as we are."

    "No!" the woman--Barbara, that was the name Zimmerman had said--shrieked. "I don't care what those doctors say; I'm not like you!"

    Tracy turned to Peter; if she'd currently had eyes, she would have narrowed them. "Do you want me to take care of this idiot for you?"

    "Sure," he said. "I'll go upstairs and check on the other occupants of the hospital. They couldn't have evacuated everyone so quickly--there must still be patients in here."

    With a nod of acknowledgement, Tracy turned her attention back to her crazed doppelganger. She remained at the top of the stairs, blocking off anyone who would try to go up or down--anyone without the ability to fly, that was. Peter rocketed into the air, up the staircase, and over Barbara's head in a matter of seconds. Barbara flinched as he sped by her, then turned to lunge after him.

    "Hey!" Tracy called, snapping Barbara's attention back over to her. "Why don't you keep your eyes on me?"

    "I don't like your voice," Barbara hissed. "It sounds too much like mine. You don't deserve to speak in my voice!"

    "Funny; I was going to say the same thing about you."

    With that, Barbara bared her teeth and let out a scream of outrage. She charged down the stairs, nails outstretched and glistening with drops of what Tracy assumed to be venom. Letting her humanoid shape dissolve, Tracy ducked out of the way of the attack with time to spare. Then, forming herself into a tendril, she wrapped around Barbara's neck and gave it a firm squeeze--not hard enough to suffocate her, but enough to let her know she was willing to.

    In an almost immediate retrospect, she probably should have killed her right there. Instead, letting out a pained yelp, Barbara brought her hands up to clutch at her neck and dug her nails into Tracy. It didn't hurt, of course--the nails just passed right through her--but an odd, almost queasy feeling came over Tracy. Recalling the presumed poison of her opponent's claws, Tracy withdrew from Barbara and set back down on the floor a few feet away from her. Panting, Barbara regarded her claw-like nails with a look of abject disgust. Tracy recognized the expression from seeing her own reflection, although she couldn't help thinking it looked a little worse on her doppelganger.

    "I'm going to kill you, whatever you are," Barbara said, taking a couple steps toward Tracy. "And then I'm going to go back upstairs and kill that man. What is he, anyway?" she added. "Your brother? Husband?"

    "Oh, I assure you, we're nowhere near that close," Tracy said. "Nor do I share his penchant for heroism. I just don't take kindly to being insulted."

    "What the hell are you saying? That you're going to kill me?!"

    "Probably, yes. If you keep getting on my nerves, then definitely."

    "You can't kill me!" Barbara proclaimed. Even as she continued to close the distance between herself and Tracy, she let her hands hang at her sides, making no move to attack. Clearly, for all her talk, this was a woman who had no goddamn clue what she had gotten herself into. "Those hospital staff couldn't, and neither can you! You and your friend should just run like rodents, the way they all did."

    The more Barbara spoke, the more Tracy grew tired of hearing her own voice talking back to her. Dropping to the ground, she rushed forward and swept under Barbara's feet, knocking her off-balance. Shrieking, Barbara swiped wildly at Tracy as she staggered and fell backward, but Tracy evaded her nails with minimal effort. She split herself into several tendrils, catching Barbara mid-fall and holding her in place regardless of how much she writhed around. That being said, she definitely _did_ writhe around, once again digging her claws into Tracy's liquid form. A ripple of unease swept through Tracy as she felt more of Barbara's poison enter her body, but she shrugged it off and told herself that she held the upper hand.

    "Still don't think I can kill you?" she challenged, dropping her temperature and letting frost seep out from her. Barbara flinched as frost began slowly creeping down her limbs. "Because I think I'd reevaluate that statement if I were you."

    "But you won't," Barbara shot back, glaring up at the spot where the tendrils converged into one. "What would your friend think?"

    "No offense, but Peter is dating a former serial killer. He might tell me off, but he's not going to denounce me. And even if he does," she added, "Like I said, we're not all that close. I honestly don't give a shit."

    With that, she let out a blast of cold air that instantly silenced Barbara's shriek of protest. Tracy felt a pang of satisfaction as she watched her doppelganger's body turn to ice and then shatter as she dropped it onto the floor. _Well,_ she thought, _that takes care of that._

    Reforming into a semi-solid shape, Tracy raised her gaze to the two branching hallways at the top of the staircase. Nothing much seemed to be going on up there; she wondered if Peter had gone up to the third or fourth floor by then, or if he was busy fussing over some patient or another. In any case, the danger was gone now, so he could come back down and the hospital staff were free to come back in--and she would finally be able to get that transfusion he had promised her.

    "Hey, Peter," she called. "Are you done up there yet? The fight's over!"

    There was no response. Further solidifying her form, Tracy rushed over and took a couple steps up the stairs before the knife reformed in her chest, sending a sharp stab of pain through her torso. Cursing, she turned the top half of her body back into water while keeping her legs solid enough to carry her up the stairs. All the while, something seemed to shift inside her, giving her a feeling that was hard to describe but thoroughly unpleasant. She called out to Peter a few more times, each time met with silence. With a prickle of worry, Tracy quickened her pace. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she paused, glancing down both hallways. One led toward some bathrooms and an elevator, whereas the other led to rows upon rows of hospital rooms; assuming Peter was still on the second floor, it didn't take a genius to figure out which way he'd gone.

    "Peter?" Tracy called again as she headed down the hallway. She stopped to open one of the hospital room doors and glance inside. One empty bed was visible, with another behind a curtain that also looked to be empty. "Damn it, where did you go off to?"

    As she spoke, the vaguely uncomfortable shifting feeling within her escalated into a roiling sensation. Tracy's vision blurred and she staggered, momentarily losing control of her movement. Coughing, she regained her footing (such as it was) only to find the ground rushing up at her. She splashed onto the floor and tried to push herself up, but her body convulsed, sloshing around with the force of ocean waves during a storm. All the while, the ever-present ringing of the fire alarm, which had seemed to fade into the background during her fight with Barbara, grew unbearably loud and piercing.

    "You had better hurry up with that blood transfusion!" Tracy yelled down the empty hall, and she shuddered when she realized she was yelling at with a solid mouth and throat. Damn it, when had she turned solid again? She hadn't meant to…

    The pain in her chest shot through her again, and she didn't need to look down to know the knife was there. But why? Grimacing, she tried to force her body back into its liquid state, but it refused to cooperate. At the same time, her vision continued to blur, taking on a dark violet tinge. _Okay,_ she told herself, _it's fine._ This had been part of the plan she'd agreed to, after all. Turn solid, thus probably dying for a few minutes, before being revived by receiving Peter's blood. But not like this. It wasn't supposed to feel like this, with the poison swimming through her system, making her head spin and her stomach churn. God, she was so unused to such sensations after not being in her proper body for so long. Another convulsion wracked her body, and she coughed, spitting up blood and bile onto the floor. Those hospital workers would really have to disinfect the place once they all got back inside.

    Well, if she was going to go down, she decided she may as well make it quick. Bringing a trembling hand up to grasp the handle of the knife, Tracy thrust it deeper into her chest, twisted it, and then yanked it back out.

* * *

 

    Sandra was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of decaf coffee and reading the newspaper, when the doorbell rang.

    To be more specific, she had been reading the funny pages in an effort to take her mind  off current events. It seemed like every time you turned around, some new tragedy was occurring. Even the comics were steeped in political commentary nowadays, but it was still something of a distraction, at least.

    Once she was finished with the comics, she moved down to the classified ads section. Her last job--a cashier at a nearby supermarket--had come to an abrupt halt the previous week when the manager had laid off several employees, herself included, without warning. She would have to find a new source of income before long, or she'd be more or less out of luck without a husband or kids to support her (Lyle worked, as far as she knew, but she wasn't exactly clear on what he did--he didn't come by much anymore, or to his father's house either--and she got the impression that he was only just scraping by). Maybe she would have to turn to Noah for financial support, although she didn't know if his current job paid him all that well either. In any case, although a pressing concern, it wasn't a problem that had to be solved immediately. Sandra still had a couple hundred dollars left in her bank account, so at least for today, she could try to relax.

    Of course, the prospect of relaxation went out the window as soon as the doorbell rang. Immediately, Mr. Muggles jumped up and started yapping his head off. Even in his old age, that dog still had quite the little voicebox. Sandra shushed him as she got up to answer the door. Since nobody had called to tell her they were coming over, she figured it was probably either a door-to-door salesperson or one of the neighbours' kids who had accidentally thrown a ball into her yard--although when she stopped to think about it, the neighbours' kids would have been at school, so it was probably a salesperson. Still, she figured she may as well answer the door just to be safe.

    "Alright, hold your horses," she muttered as the doorbell rang again while she was fumbling with the lock. Then, as the door slid open with a click: "Good morning, wh--"

    She broke off as her eyes fell on the people standing on her doorstep. On the left stood Lyle, looking a bit scruffier than the last time she'd seen him but overall in slightly better health. On the right… Sandra's heart leapt into her throat. No, that was impossible. It must've been her old eyes playing a cruel trick on her, or maybe she was finally starting to go crazy. It couldn't be--even though she desperately wanted it to be, so badly her heart felt like it was about to burst--but it _couldn't_ be. It was too good to be true that Claire was standing there, alive and well after all this time. It was impossible.

    It was Lyle who spoke first, clearing his throat and scuffing his worn-down sneaker against the welcome mat.

    "Uh, hi, Mom," he said, meeting her gaze with an expression that was difficult to read but seemed to say a million things at once. "We're home."

    His words struck Sandra like a bolt of lightning right to the chest. _They're hom_ e, she thought, tears welling up in her eyes as she took in the sight of her children. She rubbed her eyes, blinked, and Claire was still standing there, with her hands awkwardly folded at her waist and an unsure smile on her face. She looked different--older--and she had faded streaks of black dye in her hair. But it couldn't have been anyone but her. If anything, it was the differences that made Sandra realize that it wasn't her imagination. She had dreamed of seeing Claire alive again countless times, and each time she had appeared younger and younger, the fading image of a little girl who had died long ago. This wasn't that. Claire was there, and real, and alive. And she was _home_.

    A trillion _thank God_ s and _thank heavens_ raced through her mind as she stepped forward and pulled her children into a hug, but she found that she was crying too hard to get a word out. Instead, she simply held them close to her chest and drank in their presence.

    It had been such a long time since they had all been together. The last time had been shortly after Claire had announced her pregnancy. Sandra hadn't much approved of that guy her daughter had gotten together with (why couldn’t she have stayed with that nice girl from college?) but she'd been too happy for her daughter to say anything. And then… well. Then she hadn't gotten the chance to say anything to Claire, or to be with her at all any longer. But now… now she had that chance again. Oh, if only Noah were there--she would have to call him right away to tell him!

    Sandra waited until the last possible moment to break apart from the embrace, and even then she kept a hand on Claire's shoulder. Lyle stepped back, running a hand through his hair with a brighter smile on his face than she'd seen from him in ages. Down on the floor, Mr. Muggles ran around in circles, barking nonstop. Laughing, Claire knelt down, and he hopped up into her lap. She kissed him on the forehead and gave him a scratch behind the ears.

    "Hey, boy," she cooed. "You're getting up there, eh? I see a little gray around your muzzle. But you're still adorable! Mwah!" She planted another kiss to the top of his head, prompting a happy bark.

    "Oh, so you're back to talking normal again?" Lyle asked. "No more Lemon Demon quotes?"

    "Yeah… it happened last night, too," she said with a shrug. "I guess it kind of comes and goes? Weird, I know."

    Sandra observed this exchange with utter bewilderment--what on earth was Lemon Demon, and why would Claire have been quoting it?--but it couldn't subtract from the overwhelming rush of joy she felt. All she could think was that Claire was back, she was home, and… oh, dear heavens, what in the world was she wearing?! Now, Sandra wasn't one to talk, as she didn't have to go into work that day and as such hadn't changed out of her pink pajamas patterned with cartoon dog bones, but she couldn't help noticing that Claire's clothing was oversized. She donned what looked like men's jeans with the cuffs rolled up, a fleece jacket that was open at the front, and a t-shirt with some kind of science pun on it. Snapping out of the exhilarated trance that seeing Claire had put her under, Sandra knelt down beside her daughter and laid a hand on her back.

    "Those don't look like your clothes, sweetie," she said. "Where did you get those?"

    Claire turned to look at her, blinked, and then promptly burst into laughter. Startled, Sandra looked up at Lyle, who sighed as if to say, _here we go again._ However, Claire got ahold of herself quickly, straightening up and giving Sandra a teary smile.

    "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just… it's the first time you've seen me in years, and that's the first thing you say to me?"

    "I know, dear; you'll have to excuse me," said Sandra. "I suppose I'm not very good at these sort of reunions."

    "Hey, it's fine," Claire assured her. Then, taking off her jacket and turning to show Sandra the humorously labeled diagram on her shirt, she added: "I got these clothes from Mohinder. We were traveling together for a while before… well, before I got here."

    Lyle winced at that remark, and Sandra got the impression that her kids had quite a bit of explaining to do, but that could wait. She had to call Noah and let him know the good news--it was safe to assume he didn't already know, or he would have told her already.

    "Well, honey, I'm afraid we gave away most of your old clothes," she said, "But I bought some new ones recently that should fit you. They're in the dresser in your old room, if you want."

    "Wait, why'd you do that?" Claire asked.

    "Never mind that," Sandra said quickly (the issue of her having briefly harboured a strange young woman in her home a few weeks ago, while by no means something she thought Claire would disapprove of, was another conversation for another time). "Would you like anything to eat? Or how about a nice hot bath? Or--"

    "Mom, I'm fine," Claire said, giving Sandra's wrist an assuring squeeze. "I don't need anything."

    And she did look fine, in a physical sense--other than a bit of dirt smeared on her and a damp patch on her back, as though she'd been pushed onto the grass for some reason--but she couldn't possibly have been fine deep down. Getting her daughter back was a downright miracle, but Sandra knew better than to expect Claire's mental state to be unchanged. You didn't go from being dead to being alive again, while being gone for several years in between, without going through some sort of turmoil. Sure enough, even as Claire stood up and stretched, there was a certain weariness to her that Sandra couldn't help but worry about. She glanced around the kitchen, stopping to exchange a meaningful look with her brother, before heading over to the fridge.

    "I know I kind of just said I wasn't hungry, but now that I think about it, I guess I am," she said, opening the fridge door and bending down to look at its contents. "Rye bread, huh? Good for you, Mom--I've heard that stuff's pretty healthy."

    "Why, thank you," Sandra replied as Claire took the loaf out of the fridge and scanned its nutritional value chart with narrowed eyes.

    "Hmm… I don't suppose you have any white stuff kicking around, though, do you? Bread, I mean," she added quickly when Lyle let out a snort of laughter. "White bread."

    "Sorry, sweetie, I'm afraid not," Sandra said. "But I could get you some! I don't think Safeway would be open yet--wait, Lyle, could you check your phone to see what time it is? I keep forgetting to fix the kitchen clock…"

    "Mom, it's okay," Claire interjected. "I can use rye bread. I like the new wallpaper, by the way," she added with a nod to the white-and-yellow checker pattern in question. "Very sunny."

    "Why, thank you."

    It was a laughably casual scene--Claire taking out a couple slices of rye bread and popping them into the toaster, then going to the fridge to get out a pitcher of orange juice. Sandra clucked her tongue when Claire bypassed the carton of strawberries in the fridge; casting a glance at Sandra, Claire sighed and reached for the berries. It was so easy to fall back into such simple habits, even after so long. All the while, Mr. Muggles continued barking up a frenzy until Lyle scooped him up and took him outside.

    It was as though things had gone back to normal, even though Sandra had the sense to know it wouldn't be that simple. Maybe just for that one morning, though, she could pretend that nothing had changed at all.

* * *

 

    "Hey, boss, where do these go?" Micah asked, holding up a stack of gaming magazines that were dated between 2006 and 2009.

    "Oh, those? You can just throw them out," Miko told him, looking up from the spot across the shop where she was sweeping up some crumbs left by the last customer who'd come in the store. "I would say to keep them as a collector's item, but…"

    As if on cue, Micah sneezed as a few dust particles wafted up from the grime-coated pages of the magazines and into his nose. He very nearly dropped the stack of magazines, but he caught his balance and didn't let any of them fall from his grip.

    "You don't have to call me 'boss', by the way," she added. "It's not like I'm a big business owner, you know; you don't have to be _quite_ so formal."

    "Oh. Okay, boss--I mean, Otomo-san."

    With a faint blush creeping into his cheeks, Micah carried the gaming magazines over to the garbage can and dumped them inside. They landed in the can with a heavy thump, sending a shower of dust mites into the air. Micah coughed and clapped his hands in an effort to expel the dust.

    "Say, Otomo-san, your backroom looked pretty dusty too," he said. "When you're done with the broom, can I sweep in there? If you don't mind," he added quickly, recalling how she had hesitated to let him back there earlier.

    To his relief, Miko only hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Be careful with the things back there, though," she warned him. "Don't go rummaging around too much."

    "Oh, of course not!"

    (Admittedly, after the brief glimpse of it he had gotten that morning, Micah was thrilled with the prospect of getting to look around the backroom a little more. It looked like Miko had some pretty cool stuff in there. But obviously he wasn't going to do anything she didn't want him to.)

    Sure enough, a few minutes later, he found himself back in Miko's backroom, kneeling down to push the broom under an old mahogany wood cabinet. On the other side of the door, he could hear the muffled sounds of Miko having a chat with a customer, but he did his best to tune them out. That wasn't of interest to him right now; what _was_ of interest were the stash of vintage Gameboy games stored inside the cabinet. Micah didn't want to try opening the cabinet doors--he figured they would probably be locked anyway--but looking through the glass, he could see copies of at least twenty different games, most of which were so obscure that he had never played them even on an emulator.

    She had a genuine Polybius machine, too! It stood proudly against the far wall with a thin layer of dust over it and its paint chipped and fading, but still undoubtedly the real thing, and probably still functional. Micah's fingers itched for him to run over there and give it a try, but he suppressed the urge and firmly stood his ground. Miko had asked him not to tamper, he reminded himself. So what if that was a real-life polybius, the arcade machine said to exist only in myth? And so what if that katana hanging up on the wall nearby looked really, really cool? It was none of his business. Maybe he could at least go and take a closer look, though…

    Putting down the broom for a minute, Micah walked over to where the katana hung and stared up at it in awe. He had no idea what it was about the sword, but somehow it seemed to demand respect. Next to it was a shelf where several handheld game consoles were stacked in a precarious and, much like everything else in the room, thoroughly dusty pile. That wasn't quite as interesting to Micah, but he figured he had better tear his attention away from that sword before the temptation got the better of him and he touched it without permission, so he turned away from the katana and looked at the stack of games instead.

    It was a pretty cool selection--again, mostly obscure titles that must have never gotten an international release. As he picked up each dust-coated handheld console and checked to see what cartridge was loaded into it, he thought back to the game he had read about in that magazine while he was in the hospital. Miko wouldn't happen to have a copy of that lying around, would she? _Nah,_ he thought. _That'd be too much of a coincidence._ But stranger things had been known to happen.

    Sure enough, at the very bottom of the pile was a console with an even thicker coat of dust on it than the rest, which was no small feat considering the condition the rest of the collection was in. Loaded into it was a cartridge with a faded, peeling label on the top. When he blew off some of the dust and squinted a little, Micah could just make out the game's title: _Evernow._

    Although his boss's words echoed in the back of his mind, the sharp tug of curiosity got the better of Micah, and he pressed the power button on the console. However, the screen stayed black. _Oh, of course,_ Micah realized with a faint pang of disappointment. _This thing probably hasn't seen the light of day in years. I can't expect it to have a charged-up battery._ He briefly considered looking around for a charger, but then he remembered his powers and simply pressed his hand against the game's screen and requested for it to turn on.

    Almost immediately, he felt the game crackle to life beneath his palm. The screen flickered and lit up, displaying a menu that flashed the game's title card, and something else seemed to come to life as well. A powerful shock wave seemed to pulse out from the game and travel into Micah. With a yelp of surprise, he jumped back; the game fell from his hands and dropped to the floor with a clatter.

    "Micah-kun?" he heard Miko call from the other side of the door. "Are you alright back there?"

    "I, uh, I'm fine!" Micah stammered. Heart pounding, he stared down at the game. Its screen now displayed a menu, and although from his vantage point he couldn't make out what the text boxes said, it looked like it was asking whether he wanted to keep playing or start a new game. "I'm fine, Otomo-san. Nothing to worry about."

    "Okay," Miko said, although she didn't sound quite convinced. "Let me know if you need any help."

    Gulping, Micah nodded even though he knew she couldn't see him. If she _could_ see him, what would she think of what he was doing? Micah had to admit to himself that she probably wouldn't have been happy. So, he would just put this game back on its shelf, turn it off, and act like nothing had happened. Yeah, that seemed like a good idea.

    Letting out a shaky breath, Micah knelt down and reached out to pick the game up. However, as soon as his fingers brushed against the plastic of the console, it was as if a jolt of lightning had just traveled through his fingers. It didn't hurt, per se, but it was an overwhelming sensation that made Micah's mind reel. He recoiled, then slowly reached forward to touch it again. The same thing happened, but with a little less force this time. Taking deep breaths and trying to slow his heart rate, Micah swallowed hard and clasped both hands firmly around the game console.

    The sensation that followed was one beyond description. Micah simultaneously felt like he was being sucked into the game and like it was being poured into him. It stole his breath and made his heart skip several beats and knocked him off balance, sending him tumbling onto his back--but he kept his grip on the game. He could hear it, or rather feel it, pounding in his ears. Just as he spoke to machines, it was speaking back to him. Micah didn't understand why it was so powerful--most machines and electronics didn't speak back in the way a living being would, and the ones that did were never this lively. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on what the game was saying to him.

     **_Get me out of here,_ ** a voice inside his head rang out. It was a familiar voice--not intimately so, but definitely one he recognized from somewhere. Kirby Plaza, maybe? **_How did I get back in here? I can't be here! I need to get back to him!_ **

    The voice sounded frantic, desperate, scared. Its sheer volume was enough to make Micah's head feel like it was about to split. He screamed in pain, tightening his grip around the game console as its message continuously poured into him, pounding against his cranium and filling his ears with a shrill ringing. This wasn't just a game talking to him, Micah realized. This was something alive. Or, more accurately, some _one._ He didn't think they meant to hurt him, either, but…

     **_Get me out!_ **the voice pleaded again, sending a harsh vibration down Micah's spine and seeming to sear his nerve endings with its intensity.

    Upon feeling pinpricks of heat against his hands, Micah opened his eyes to see sparks fizzling up from the cartridge. He had to let go. But, somehow, he couldn't pull himself away. Blood dripped onto his pant leg, and he realized with a hitching feeling in his gut that his nose was bleeding.

    "I'm sorry!" he yelled, having no idea if his voice would reach whoever was speaking to him but not knowing how else to communicate. "I don't know any more than you do! Please, just--just stop!"

    The whirling, pounding feeling in Micah's head ended like a lightbulb being flicked off, and just as quickly as things had escalated, they settled back to normal. Winded, Micah slumped forward and let the game clatter out of his grip. He regarded the game's screen as it lay just in front of him, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Just as he had thought, it was displaying a "you died" message and asking whether he wanted to play again. Apparently the previous player had one life left. Was that player the one who had spoken to him?

    Just then, the doors swung open with a creak and Miko burst through. Micah snapped to attention and raised his head to shoot his boss a guilty look. However, she didn't even seem to notice the game lying on the floor next to Micah as she rushed to his side and swept him off the ground into a sort of awkward kneeling half-embrace. It was only as she was helping him to his feet that her gaze landed on the game, and when it did, she glanced back at Micah with a stricken expression.

    "Micah-kun, what happened?" she demanded. "Did that game do something to you?"

    "Kind of," Micah admitted. "I don't think it was really the game's fault, though. I think…" He hesitated, regarding Miko carefully and hoping she wouldn't think he was too insane for saying what he was about to. "I think there might be somebody in there."

    "In the game?" Miko's eyes widened, and she looked back down at the game, which continued to display the same unassuming screen. "That's impossible. I already--I mean, nobody could be in there. Not anymore."

    "So you already knew something was weird about it?" Micah asked, following Miko's actions as she knelt down to observe the screen. "I'm sorry for snooping around back here," he added. "I know you told me not to touch anything, it just looked so cool, and…"

    "Never mind that," she cut him off. "Tell me exactly what happened to make you think there's a person within this game."

    "Well, it kind of spoke to me," he said. "Only it didn't feel the way it normally does to communicate with a machine. That's, um, sort of my thing, by the way. I talk to machines."

    "Hmm. What an interesting ability," Miko muttered. "I guess we're a well-suited team-up, in that case."

    As she spoke, she took the game into her hands, stood up, and walked over to where the katana hung on the wall. Micah followed her over and hung back as she stared up at the blade with her back turned to him. Whatever was going through her mind, Micah couldn't even begin to guess. She didn't seem to take issue with the revelation that he had powers, which was a relief. Maybe she had them too?

    After a few tense moments of silence, she spoke up again.

    "Say, Micah-kun. Do you ever think about the logistics of being trapped inside a video game for a certain length of time--a year, let’s say? Say you were freed from the game and went on to have a long, happy life. Only, upon being freed, you had an extra life left in the game."

    "Um, what then?" Micah asked. He could see exactly what Miko was getting at--why the game was displaying a "you died/ play again?" screen--but a lot of what she was saying didn't make any sense to him. How had someone gotten trapped inside the game to begin with? And who had it been?

    "I think…" Miko turned to face Micah again, clutching the game console tightly in her hand. "I think maybe, when that person died, they would respawn within the game again."

    Micah took a step forward, feeling a tug like metal toward a magnet. He could hear a faint whisper brushing against his ear, and although it may have only been his imagination this time, he thought he could make out the voice of the person inside the game begging to be set free.

    "You think," he echoed. "So how do we know for sure?"

    "Well, I suppose there's only one way to find out," Miko sighed. Slowly, she reached up and grabbed her katana off its position on the wall, then handed the game to Micah. "Micah-kun, you may want to step back a little."

    Micah heeded her words and backed away as Miko's face twisted into a grimace of determination. With one hand on the handle of her sword and the other wrapped around its sheath, she pulled the glinting blade out and--

    The game console in Micah's hands emitted another wave, making him momentarily dizzy. At the same time, there was a blinding flash of white light. Micah flinched, and when he reopened his eyes, Miko was gone. Or--no, wait, she wasn't gone at all. He couldn't explain how he recognized her presence, but he could feel her now inside the game.

    The "continue playing" button suddenly seemed to beckon him, and Micah could have sworn he heard Miko instructing him to press it. Heart speeding up, he selected the option, and the menu was replaced first by a loading screen, then by a 3D area with decent enough graphics. He saw Miko, rendered impeccably with her sword in hand, and he saw a man in a black cloak standing with his back to the screen. Before Micah could properly process everything he was seeing, Miko grabbed the man by the wrist and, in a shimmer of pixels, they both disappeared from the game's screen.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the debacle at the Thunder Bay hospital taken care of and a mother-child reunion accomplished, it may seem as though things are drawing to a close--but there is still plenty of danger on the horizon, and the struggle is far from over for our heroes. Peter teteers on the brink of a breakdown. Noah gets another warning. Ando gets an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: there's a bit of body horror toward the beginning and end, and at another point there's also some discussion of suicide (as a past event, not something that happens in the actual chapter, but it could still be triggering). As always, reader discretion is advised!

    Heart pounding in his chest and blood rushing in his ears, Peter ran toward the source of the unmistakable sound of a crying child. It was quiet, and nearly drowned out by the persistent wail of the fire alarm, but he could recognize it with absolute certainty. It was coming from up ahead, just a few rooms more-- _there!_

    Peter came to a stop at a set of doors with deep gashes running down them and a broom shoved hastily through the door handles, presumably to prevent anyone from opening it. The gashes on the door glistened with purple liquid; clearly Barbara had taken her claws to the material, but she must have found it too difficult or not worth her time to get through. From the other side of the door he could hear a muffled sobbing. It sounded like multiple fairly young kids. Gritting his teeth, Peter rolled his sleeves up and, making sure not to come in contact with the traces of venom left on the door, removed the broom blocking his entrance and pushed the doors open.

    Upon opening the doors to the hospital room, his eyes fell on the source of the crying almost immediately. Huddled under a table next to one of the hospital beds were two young children, clutching onto each other like their lives depended on it. They looked to be a pair of siblings, with similar lithe builds and facial structures, and the same velvet-dark complexions; one was a girl who looked around six or seven, and the other a boy who couldn't have been older than four or five. They flinched when Peter entered the room, and the younger child screamed. Peter took a step back and held up his hands, empty palms facing forward.

    "It's okay," he told them. "I'm here to help you."

    The children regarded him with suspicion, but they didn't object, and the older child's shoulders seemed to relax as he entered the hospital room. Once inside, he gave the room a quick once-over. Everything seemed to be in place, with no sign that Barbara had entered at any point. Additionally, both the hospital beds were empty. These people must have gone into an unused room to hide from Barbara.

    After a moment, the older child cautiously crawled out from under the table while her brother remained curled up beneath it. His wide, anxious gaze followed her as she got to her feet and stared up at Peter. Giving both the children a reassuring smile, Peter knelt down and laid a hand on the little girl's shoulder.

    "Can you tell me who hid you in this room?" he asked. "Who did you come here with?"

    "Auntie Shema brought us here to visit Mom and Dad," she told him, lowering her gaze from his face to stare at the gray tiled floor. "But then a scary lady showed up and started hurting people…"

    As she said this, her brother let out a whimper, and she looked over her shoulder at him and made a soft, comforting shushing sound. Turning back to Peter, she grimaced, and he saw tears welling up in her eyes. Overwhelmed by empathy for their plight, he had to resist the urge to pull the kids into a hug. They wouldn't appreciate that, he reminded himself sharply. He had to stay focused and think of a way to help them out.

    "I'm assuming your aunt made you hide in this room," he said, and the little girl nodded. "Do you know where she went?"

    She shook her head, face contorting in the way that a child's face often did when they were trying very hard not to cry.

    "Maybe she went to fight the scary lady," the little boy spoke up. Although he remained hunkered beneath the table, he was slowly beginning to edge his way forward. "Do you think she's okay?"

    Peter swallowed hard, looking between the two children and wondering what he could tell them. Before picking up on the sound of the crying, he had checked in several other hospital rooms. Most had been empty, but one of the rooms had been completely turned upside down, with its beds tipped over and the curtain separating them torn down. There had been a body pinned under each bed, and a nurse slumped against a wall. In another room, the wires connecting a patient to life support had been torn up and strewn about. In another, the limp hand of an elderly woman lay atop the assistance button; just outside the room, a nurse lay motionless in the hallway. In each case, Peter had stopped to check for a pulse just in case, but there were none to be found. If Barbara had gotten her hands on an ordinary civilian who was unequipped to defend themself (as anyone visiting a hospital likely would be) things couldn't possibly have turned out well for that person.

    "It sure was weird when Auntie Shema saw that lady," the boy added with a shudder. "She started yelling at her about a lake and a knife and stuff."

    His sister nodded, murmuring in agreement.

    "But the lady didn't seem to know who Auntie Shema was. It was really weird, huh?"

    Although something clicked in the back of Peter's mind upon receiving this information, he didn't have time to think it over. The important thing was where the children's aunt had ended up, and whether she was okay.

    "Do you know which way your aunt went?" he asked. "Did she say anything about going upstairs or downstairs, or to your parents' hospital room, or…?"

    Both kids shook their heads. Peter sighed; that didn't give him much to go on. Even so, he had to at least keep an eye out for a woman who looked like she could be these kids' relative as he continued his search for surviving patients and other civilians. Standing up, he nodded toward the kids and shot them an encouraging smile.

    "Well, thank you for telling me about your situation. I have to keep looking for other people who need help, but my friend is downstairs taking care of the woman who was hurting people earlier, so if you stay in this room you should be safe!"

    With that, he turned and headed out the door, making sure to seal the door with the broom handle the way it had been when he arrived. From down the hallway, he thought he heard Tracy calling out his name, but over the persistent blaring of the alarms that still filled the building, it was impossible to say for sure. He headed off further down the hall, keeping his senses peeled for any more people in need of assistance.

    "Peter?" He had only gotten a few feet down the hall when he heard Tracy's voice again, quite a bit closer now, and this time he was sure it wasn't his imagination. "Damn it, where did you go off to?"

    "Don't worry, I'm coming," he called, although he had no idea if his voice would reach her. "Just hold on a minute."

    No sooner had the words left his mouth than he heard Tracy call out to him again, followed by a series of sounds that brought a chill to Peter's spine: a violent fit of hacking, the sound of metal against flesh, and the dull, heavy thump of a body hitting the floor.

    "Tracy?"

    He turned on his heel, eyes widening in shock and horror, but he was a moment too late to see her fall. Instead, what he laid eyes on several feet down the hallway was a figure lying facedown on the floor, rapidly shifting between a bloodied human form and a liquid form with a cloud of purple venom swirling inside it. A knife with dried blood crusted on the blade lay just in front of her, with her fingers brushing against the handle. Her body was a quivering, shaking mass, and it seemed to be dissolving.

    Heart seizing, Peter rushed down the hall toward Tracy. When he reached her side, he dropped to his knees and assessed her grisly situation. As she rippled between forms, blood and poison pooled around her, mingling with chunks of melting ice that were flaking off her like autumn leaves.

    "Tracy, hold on," Peter told her, urgency gripping his chest as he tried to wrap his arms around her. "What happened to you? Are you okay?"

    It was a stupid question, he realized. He couldn’t tell if Tracy was even alive, and if she was, then she would only remain that way for a matter of seconds. Her human shape was cold to the touch, and it shifted under his hands, a bit like touching a pile of cold, damp earth. The more she flickered back and forth between that and having no solidity to her at all, the two states of being seemed to blend together until she wasn't recognizable as anything--just a pile of flesh and bone mixed with ice and water, filled with poisoned blood. It was horrifying, and grotesque, and…

    …And then it was gone. _She_ was gone, dissolving into the floor and out of sight. Peter's breath evaporated in his throat, and for a long moment, all he could do was stare in shock at the damp, darkly stained floorboards. This wasn't right. It wasn't supposed to go like this. She would have to temporarily die, yes, but only so that he could almost immediately bring her back with a blood transfusion. He couldn't help her when she was… when she was just _gone_!

    Gradually, as he let out a long, shaky breath, the realization sank in. Barbara's venom had done her in. That meant it was his fault--if he had been the one to fight off Barbara instead--or even if he had just heard Tracy's calls and gotten to her sooner… he had done it again, just after swearing he wouldn't. He hadn't been there, and his friend had died because of it.

* * *

 

    Once Claire had peanut-buttered her toast and, at her mother's unspoken but forceful request, washed a handful of strawberries, she sat down at the dinner table. Sandra sat down across from her, although she had to pull up an extra chair in order to do so; a pang of remorse hit Claire when she realized that her mother must have been alone in this house more often than not. On one level it made sense, of course. Even if nothing had happened to her, she and Lyle both would have long since moved out at that point anyway. Still, everything about the circumstances just made it feel worse. Claire tried not to feel guilty, since she knew it wasn't her fault, but when she thought of her mother sitting alone in an empty house, she couldn't help it.

    "So, this fellow you were traveling with," Sandra began. "He's not the one who broke into our house that time, was he? You remember," she added, "Our old house back in Texas."

    "Huh? Oh, no, that was Matt. The guy I was with is Mohinder. He's Matt's… I wanna say his ex?" Claire hummed thoughtfully to herself as she popped a berry into her mouth. "I'm not super clear on their whole deal."

    "And he was polite to you?"

    "Oh, yeah, of course," she said. "What about you, Mom? How have you been holding up?"

    "Never mind that," Sandra deflected with a wave of her hand. "What have you been up to other than traveling? You've been gone for years, and… well, surely you've been, erm, up and around for longer than a few weeks."

    "But, Mom, I want to know how you and Lyle are doing," Claire insisted. "Not to sound conceited, but losing me must have been hard on you, right? And how's dad doing? Mohinder said that he--"

    "Noah has been doing just fine," Sandra assured her. "He… he wasn't for the first year or so; none of us were, but he's doing a lot better now. Meeting the twins really put him back in a better place."

    "The twins?" Claire echoed, a moment before realization struck her. "My twins?" Sandra nodded, and she broke into a disbelieving grin. "Wow. Wait, so, uh, how old are they? Mohinder explained that there'd been some time travel stuff, so they're older than they would have been--are they, like, ten? Twelve?"

    "Well, sweetie, they're a little older than that," Sandra told her, pursing her lips. "They're actually in university already. I believe it's their third or fourth year?"

    "Oh," Claire mumbled. An unexpected disappointment settled cold and heavy in her chest. She took a bite of toast and chewed it as slowly as possible before speaking again. "My kids are all grown up, then."

    "Oh, but I'm sure they'll want to meet you," Sandra said, laying an assuring hand atop Claire's wrist. "And you can get to know them as they are now. They're both just lovely, you know--your grandmother brought Malina up very properly, and that Nakamura fellow and his wife did a good job raising Tommy, from what Noah has told me."

    Although Claire nodded along, she barely heard what her mother was saying. Once again, the reality of her long absence weighed in her mind. To be honest, she had never exactly wanted to get pregnant, and she probably wouldn't have been a very good mother. That wasn't really what bothered her. It was the fact that she hadn't even gotten the chance to try, as bad at raising children as she may well have been. It was the fact that her family had to find someone else to raise the twins in her absence, because she hadn't been _there_ when they needed her.

    "Mom, I'm sorry," she blurted; Sandra blinked at her in surprise. "I wish I hadn't… I wish that I had stayed with you guys. I'm sorry."

    Sandra shook her head, face brimming with emotion. "Oh, sweetie, you know it wasn't your fault," she said, reaching across the table to lay a hand on Claire's cheek. "It wasn't anybody's fault."

    "I know," she sighed. "But… Mohinder told me something while we were traveling together. He said that I probably hadn't come back to life recently. I don't remember anything from between six years ago and earlier this month, but if I was alive during that time, why didn't I come home sooner?"

    "You don't remember?" Sandra retracted her hand, eyebrows knitting together. "You don't think it was that Haitian gentleman, do you?"

    "No, I don't think René has anything to do with it," Claire said. "Unless…"

    Stopping to take a sip of orange juice, she thought the prospect over once again. It didn't seem likely that Noah would have put René up to such a thing, but she didn't know anyone else with the power to remove memories, and if René had done it then it made sense for it to have been at her father's request. She knew full well the lengths Noah would go to protect her, and if keeping her resurrection a secret and then erasing her memories was supposed to have protected her somehow (although she couldn't see how) then she certainly wouldn't have put it past him. For a moment she even stopped to wonder whether she really had died in the first place, or if it had all been faked somehow, but… no, she remembered dying, and she remembered knowing beyond a doubt that she was dying at that moment. After that, even though she didn't remember, she knew there had been something--maybe a light, or maybe an endless darkness, but definitely something beyond her previous experience.

    "Unless?" Sandra prompted, jerking Claire out of her philosophical thoughts.

    "Un _less_ ," Claire said, "Dad is hiding something from us."

    "That reminds me," Sandra said, glancing toward the living room where she kept her landline phone. "I keep forgetting to call your father and tell him… after you're finished eating, remind me to give him a call, would you?"

    "Yup, can do."

    With that, the conversation dropped off, although Sandra continued to ask variations of "how are you?" and "do you need anything?" As much as Claire appreciated her mother's concern, it was beginning to get a little tiring, especially since Sandra deflected most of the questions Claire asked in return. She got the feeling that her mother was avoiding discussing something. She considered confronting her about it directly, but decided against it. Sandra wasn't usually the type to hide things, so if there was something she wanted to keep Claire from knowing, she must have had a good reason. Right?

* * *

 

    The next time Bruce came to check in on Tommy, he held a different photograph in his hand. This time, it looked like a printout from an online news article; much like the newspaper clipping, it was in black-and-white and slightly faded, but the page it was on was white and crisp, only slightly crumpled by Bruce's grip as he opened the door and shoved the photo into Tommy's hands.

    "You see that man?" Bruce asked. "I want you to take me to him, right now."

    Tommy regarded the photo curiously. Although most of the article had been cropped out, the headline was visible, as were the first couple lines of the article. Unfortunately, they were all written in Japanese, which Tommy couldn't read--although somehow it felt like maybe he should have been able to? He didn't see how, or remember when or why he would have learned it, but when he looked at the headline he found himself understanding it. It read, "Evo Vigilante Arrested For Sixth Time". The photo below the headline showed a man riding a motorcycle and shooting what looked like some kind of beam out of his hand. He had a defiant expression.

    "Um, Dad?" The word tasted wrong on Tommy's tongue, but he spoke it anyway, and Bruce smiled--although it actually looked more like a smirk--when he did. "Who is this, again?"

    "Why, this is one of the men from the photo I showed you yesterday… son," Bruce said, kneeling down to lay a hand on Tommy's shoulder. The grip felt uncomfortably tight, and Tommy suppressed the urge to squirm. "He's the one we've been looking for this whole time. If you take me to him, then we'll finally be able to put our plan into action."

    "What will you do when I take you to him?"

    "Well, kiddo, we're just going to have a nice little chat," Bruce said, flashing Tommy the sort of smile that a circus performer might give to a child. "And then I'm going to invite him over to stay with us for a while, and he'll help us do what we need to do."

    Tommy studied the way Bruce's face shifted as he answered. He was lying, he knew. On some level, Tommy had never quite believed that the man kneeling before him was his father. It felt like the outer layer of his brain was telling him one thing, like a loud whisper in his ear, but something buried deep in the back of his mind told him something else, and he knew in his gut which one was true. Although upon closer look, the man in the picture Bruce was showing him now was definitely one of the men from the first photo, it was their apparent target’s companion that plagued Tommy's thoughts. It was like he couldn't even think about him without his mind being filled with a thick, crackling static, but at the same time, that man's face made him feel safe and secure in a way that Bruce could never hope to.

    So, yes, Bruce was definitely lying, and his partner most likely was as well. But the extent of their lies--what they actually intended to do to the motorcycle-riding man--Tommy couldn't hope to guess. Despite being described as a vigilante, he didn't exactly look dangerous. Glancing over the first couple lines of the article, which was smudged with printer ink and cut off midway through a sentence but still mostly legible, he got the impression that this was not an evil man. So if Bruce and Ji Woo (who was so obviously unmotherly that no amount of static filling his mind could ever have convinced him otherwise) wanted to hurt an unthreatening man, that meant they were the villains. So if Tommy went along with helping them, what did that make him?

    Unfortunately, he didn't get much of a chance to think that over, nor the option to refuse. Grabbing Tommy by the wrist, Bruce yanked him to his feet and out of the closet, then pushed him out into the main room. The TV was off and Ji Woo was nowhere to be seen. Keeping a tight hold on Tommy's wrist, Bruce walked over and grabbed a pair of scissors from the counter next to the minifridge. When Tommy's eyes widened at the sight of the glinting metal instruments, he chuckled and clapped him on the back just hard enough to sting.

    "Calm down, son, I'm not gonna use these to hurt anyone," he said as he tucked the scissors into his back pocket. "You know I'm a peaceful guy; that isn't my style. Woo-woo uses these to cook, did you know that?" he went on, keeping a forced-sounding amicable tone in his voice as he made his way to the door. "Chopping vegetables with scissors--she says she learned it from her mom. I just think it's weird, but the food she makes is decent, so whatever."

    "Sh-she cooks?" Tommy asked. "I thought you guys just ordered in all the time."

    (He couldn't bring himself to refer to Ji Woo as his mother, even to trick Bruce into thinking he still believed what they told him. He could feel a half-memory of his real parents hovering at the edge of his mind, just out of reach, and it was just so antithetical to anything about the two people holding him hostage. Because that was what they were doing: holding him hostage. He realized that now, and wished he had realized it sooner so that he could have teleported away from them long ago. But if he tried to do that now, he would just take Bruce with him wherever he went, and he knew there would be consequences if he tried to jerk away from Bruce's grip. He also knew that he wouldn't have time to escape those consequences, whether they come in the form of more memories scrambled beyond remembrance or the sharp points of the scissors digging into him.)

    "Why, how could you say such dreadful things?" Bruce sneered as he led Tommy out the door, locking it shut behind him, and down the hallway. Despite the circumstances, Tommy couldn't help noticing how hideous the pattern on the wallpaper was. "Of course she cooks, when she feels like it."

    Judging by the type of fare Tommy had been fed for the past few weeks (that is to say, leftover scraps of fast food) he guessed that Ji Woo didn't feel like cooking very often. He considered making a biting remark on the subject, but then he thought again of the scissors in Bruce’s back pocket and decided he would be better off keeping quiet.

    Bruce came to a stop a few steps away from their hotel room, looked furtively back and forth, then tightened his grip on Tommy. He squirmed at the sensation of Bruce's hand squeezing his wrist; it was getting painful, and beginning to cut off his circulation. Ignoring Tommy's discomfort, Bruce nodded to the photo he still held in his free hand.

    "Take me to wherever that guy is," he ordered. When Tommy hesitated, he raised his voice and said: "Do it!"

    Flinching, Tommy involuntarily crumpled the photo in his hand. Then, shrinking under Bruce's glare, he smoothed the photo back out and took another look at it. Breathing slowly, in and out despite the anxious flutter of his heartbeat, he closed his eyes and formed a picture of the man from the photograph in his mind. _Take me there_ , he thought to himself, or to whatever cosmic force may have granted him his powers. _I want to go where this man is_. He wasn't sure if it would work at first, but sure enough, he felt the familiar rush of disrupted space-time around him and heard the soft pop of a portal in the fabric of reality opening and closing. Although he could never hope to guess what would happen next, he knew that somehow it would change everything.

* * *

 

    A few days into their impromptu road trip-slash-quest, Malina's travelling companion woke with a start with a new piece of knowledge in her head. She couldn't quite remember what she had just been dreaming about, but it had made her feel so incredibly warm and safe that she almost wished she were still asleep. The single-bed hotel room they had managed to book at the last minute had seemed decent enough at 3:00 AM the night before, but now the measly blankets stacked atop her weren't enough to combat the lack of heating.

    In her dream, someone had been looking out for her, or maybe even looking _after_ her. Although their faces were a blur, she thought of the pages in her journal--of the person or people she had written of, fearing that they would be ashamed of her if they could see her--and she wondered if it was the same people. The one thing she could remember for sure was the name they had spoken. It was _her_ name, she was certain of it, and it echoed through her mind with the quiet force of a trembling earth.

    Rolling over to face her still-sleeping companion, she gently jostled Malina awake. Yawning, Malina sat up and rubbed sleep out of her eyes.

    "Morning. What's up?"

    "I've figured something out," she began, squirming into a sitting position with her legs tucked up beneath her. "My name isn't actually Parker."

    "Yeah, I figured as much," Malina said. "So, then… what is it?"

    She hesitated, slightly unnerved by the almost expectant tone in Malina's voice. If her companion had any theories as to her true identity, why would she have kept them to herself? Still, deciding not to pay it any mind, she continued:

    "My name is actually Molly."

    At that, Malina's eyes widened; Molly could have sworn she heard her whisper _"I knew it."_ Eyebrows crinkling together in confusion, Molly leaned forward to regard her companion with suspicion.

    "You knew it?" she asked. "What did you know? Are you hiding something from me?"

    "Oh! Uh, no, not really," Malina said. "I mean, I definitely had a theory, but I didn't think it could be true… I mean, you don't have any secret healing capabilities, do you?"

    "Uh, no?" Molly tilted her head, only getting more confused by the second. "Why do you ask? I'm not related to your mom, am I?"

    "No, nothing like that. It's just…" She paused, taking a deep breath and wincing slightly. "You remember the day we met, when I mentioned that my mom's dad used to know a girl with your powers?"

    Molly slowly nodded. Although there were no evident dangers to be found, a freezing wave of anxiety suddenly swept over her. Something shifted in the back of her static-filled mind, and a faint phantom pain sprung up in her skull.

    "I think you're her," Malina said, laying her hand atop Molly's and giving it a light squeeze. "Even though she killed herself, I think she somehow came back--and now she's you, or rather, you were her all along."

    The phantom pain in Molly's head flared up like hell as Malina spoke, and with the force of a thousand bullets, static gave way to a memory. She screamed, falling backward away from Malina and toward the edge of the bed. Malina darted forward and grabbed her by the wrist before she could fall off, but the touch of her hand seemed freezing, or maybe burning, and Molly recoiled. She could feel the cold weight of a gun in her hand, the sting of tears in her eyes, the way she fought to keep a tremble out of her voice as she spoke before pulling the trigger. She still couldn't remember why--couldn't bear to think of it, in case remembering would drive her to do it again--but as soon as Malina said it, Molly knew without a doubt that she was right. She remembered. She had killed herself (but why?) and now she was alive again (but why?) and she couldn't remember anything except for her name and the fact that she had killed herself (but _why?!)_

    "Molly!" The hotel room seemed to spin around her as she dangled half-off the bed, but Malina's voice came through loud and clear. "Molly, what's going on? Are you alright?"

    "No!" Molly cried, startled by the volume and sharpness of her own voice. "No, I'm not alright! I--" Her voice hitched, and she flinched at the sensation of a tear rolling down her cheek. "You're right. I am the girl your grandfather knew."

    "Oh, Molly," Malina murmured, gently and slowly pulling her into an embrace. "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have told you."

    What was she supposed to say to that? She didn't know. All she could think about was the screaming echoes of fatal self-inflicted pain. When Malina continued to hold her, she grimaced and writhed her way out of the embrace. It was a nice gesture, but it wasn't doing anything for her.

    Molly repositioned herself so that she was sitting at the edge of the bed facing the wall, knees drawn up to her chest, and lowered her head into her hands as tears continued to fall from her eyes. Even as her phantom pains dissipated, her whole body was trembling, and she half-expected someone or something to jump out from the shadows and harm her at any moment. She felt… she felt like a scared little girl.

    After a few moments, Molly felt the bed shift under her traveling companion's weight as Malina slowly lowered herself to the floor; Molly guessed that she was trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to disturb her. That was nice of her, she thought. Malina was really nice. She was just the _wrong person_ . If Molly was still with the people from her dream--it had been a resurfaced memory, she was sure of it, and she desperately wished that it hadn't vanished so quickly upon her waking--if they were there to protect her now, then she would be okay. But they weren't there! Where were they, and _who_ were they? Even with her powers, Molly couldn't find them if she didn't even know who to look for.

    Now she found herself crying harder, wretched sobs that wracked her entire body. It wasn't that Malina shouldn't have told her who she was. It was better to know than to not know, she supposed. It was that she knew all the wrong things, all the painful and horrible things, and the memory of the people who had made her feel safe remained lost to the static.

* * *

 

    A couple of miles past the California border, Noah's car was getting so low on gas that, were you to take the gas tank out and tip it over onto the grass, only the tiniest drizzle would come out. As such, he pulled over at the first gas station he came across--as much as he would have preferred something a little less decrepit, the chances of him coming across another gas station before the gas ran out completely seemed pretty low. Pulling into the parking lot, he took stock of six discarded syringes, ten broken beer bottles, and dozens of cigarette butts. Luckily it was the type of station where you paid for the gas right at the meter, so at least he didn't have to physically venture inside the shabby, graffitied building after filling up his tank.

    While he was taking a brief respite from driving, though, he decided to check his phone for any new messages. Naturally, he did this inside the car, with the windows rolled up and the doors locked. He wasn't really expecting any new messages aside from maybe some more dream updates from Angela, so he was taken by surprise to find that he had two new voicemail messages--one from her, one from Malina--and three missed calls from Sandra. The latter in particular made his eyebrows furrow. Sandra didn't usually call him anymore, unless she had gotten herself into some kind of trouble she thought he could help with, which in and of itself was a rare occurrence. What she could have been calling him about this time eluded him completely.

    Although curiosity about his ex-wife's calls pricked at him, he decided he'd call her back later and, in the meantime, listen to Angela's message first. Considering her previous dream about him dying, any new information on the subject would be of great use to him. Noah took in a deep breath and desperately tried to fight back anxiety as he pressed play on the message.

     _"Hello, Noah. I had another dream last night concerning you. It definitely looks like you're going to die. In my dream, there was a lot of blood pooled around you, and I'm assuming it's your own. I believe the culprit will be, as fantastical as it sounds, an undead woman."_

    There was a long pause at the end of the message, as if Angela had considered saying more but decided against it. Frowning, Noah waited for the last few silent seconds of the recording to see if Angela had had anything else to say. When the message ended, he moved on to Malina’s message. Hopefully hearing from his quasi-granddaughter could at least momentarily alleviate the stress of his prophesied doom.

     _"Hey again, Gramps. So, uh, there's this girl…"_

    Immediately, Noah smiled. _Getting a girlfriend in college… like mother, like daughter_ , he thought. However, he quickly stopped smiling as he picked up on the sound of muffled crying in the background. Malina paused, and then the recording went on:

     _"This is going to sound crazy, and I'm not sure how she came back to life, but it's Molly Walker. She doesn't have any memories for some reason, but she still has her powers, and she used them to observe somebody who I've really wanted to meet for a long time. So we're kind of on a road trip, I guess? Sorry I didn't tell you about this sooner. Now just seemed like a good time. Anyway, Molly is having a really rough time right now, so can you call me back and tell me the names of some people she was close to before she died? Maybe send me some pictures, too, so she has more to go off of. That way she can find them and they can get back in touch! Uh, just a thought. Anyway, bye, Gramps!"_

    As the second recording ended with a click, Noah stared blankly ahead through the windshield for several long moments. It felt a bit like his brain was a paper shredder, and Malina had just stuffed an entire phonebook through the slot. _Molly._ The name echoed dully in his mind, reverberating like metal against metal and leaving an unpleasant coppery tang on his tongue. First he was supposed to get killed by an undead woman, and now Molly Walker (who could very well have blamed him for her death, because he sure as hell blamed himself for it sometimes) had come back to life. Those two things couldn't possibly have been unrelated. Was Molly going to kill him? And if so, then did she pose a danger to Malina? And… hold on, they were on a "road trip" together… meaning they weren't at the college?

    "So where the hell are you?" Noah muttered aloud, taking his glasses off for a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Waltzing around with some reanimated corpse… when I drove all the way out here just to find you, damn it…"

    Another thing about her message stuck out to him, too. Who exactly had Malina and Molly gone off to look for? When she had spoken, it had sounded a bit like she was trying to hide something. Were they looking for Tommy? That would be one bit of good news--since it would mean that Malina's memory was back to normal--but at the same time it was very much _not_ good news. Assuming Tommy had been kidnapped, whoever had taken him must have had formidable powers in order to alter memories in such a way. His rational side knew that Malina was very powerful as well, and that she could hold her own against many formidable opponents. But his overprotective parent/guardian side strongly disagreed. Was she just going to walk right into danger? What if she and Tommy both got killed? What if Tommy was already dead? What if--?!

     _Damn it, Bennet, get a hold of yourself_ , Noah thought. Letting out a long sigh, he laid his glasses on the dashboard and leaned back in his car seat, massaging his temples. Worrying wasn't going to do anyone any good. What he had to do was call Malina back and find out where she was, make her go back to the college whether she wanted to or not, then get Molly to locate Tommy, and then set out to save the boy himself. Even if he failed, that way he would know that at least one of the twins was safe. And if he was able to rescue Tommy, then it wouldn't matter if Molly or anyone else wound up killing him in the end. The twins still had other people to look out for them, after all. Not that he would throw his life away if he didn't have to, but…

    Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Noah slipped his glasses back on and scrolled down his list of contacts to Sandra's number. He wished she would get in the habit of leaving messages when she called, but at this point it was safe to assume that she was never going to adopt the habit. In any case, whatever she needed help with, he hoped that it wasn't too urgent. He had far too much on his plate already to drop everything and rush off to help his ex.

    However, just before Noah could select the phone option to call Sandra back, his ringtone began to play. A new display popped up on his screen--Angela was phoning him again. Raising his eyebrows, he answered the call and lifted the phone to his ear.

    "Hello?"

    "Noah, I don't know whether or not you got my message, but I have something else to say about my dream." Angela spoke quickly, with a decisive urgency to her voice. "I didn't want to tell you this at first, but I believe I understand now. You're going to be attacked by a shapeshifter disguised as Claire."

    Heart seizing, Noah sucked in a breath and tightened his grip on the phone. It didn't surprise him that anyone would stoop so low, but it made him sick to his stomach nonetheless. Taking on the appearance of a man's dead daughter as a strategy to take him down--what degree of hatred for him could drive such a despicable action?

    "Keep your guard up," Angela continued. "When you see the shapeshifter, you may be tempted to believe it's really her. If you do, Noah, if you let your guard down--"

    "...It could cost me my life," he finished numbly. "Don't worry, I'm not naive enough to be fooled like that."

    "That's good to hear," she told him. "If it were my son, I'm afraid the trick would be more likely to succeed."

    "That reminds me," Noah said. "Did Peter ever find out about…"

    "About Claire?" Angela let out a heavy sigh. "He didn't know until a few days ago."

    "But he does now?" 

    "It's been nice talking to you, Noah. Goodbye," she said, which he took as a _"yes_ ".

    Noah hummed thoughtfully to himself as he tucked his phone back away in the glove compartment (calling Sandra back could wait, he decided; he would be better off getting back on the road for the time being). Between what Angela had told him and what Malina was apparently getting up to, it seemed as though things were getting even stranger than he'd expected. He could only hope that Sandra hadn't been calling about anything important, because he had much more urgent matters to attend to.

* * *

 

    There was nothing good on TV, but that was hardly anything new. Letting out a heavy sigh, Ando flipped back and forth between channels, trying to find something decent enough to keep his mind occupied. A high school soap opera? A totally inaccurate and gratuitously gory period piece about the warring states era? An overly cutesy slice-of-life anime? None of it appealed to him in the slightest. It was almost enough to make him get up off the couch and go to work, but he had overslept that morning and woken up at quarter to noon, so he figured there was no point in coming in now--he was just calling it a day off. In any case, he doubted he was going to be laid off. He and Hiro had gotten away with fucking off to America for a solid month without getting fired, after all--but then again, that had been over a decade ago. Maybe company policy had changed since then.

    Letting out a groan of frustration, he ran his fingers through his hair and tried to think of what kind of show Hiro would have wanted to watch. Something with superheroes, probably, or an old _Star Trek_ rerun. There was some kind of superhero anime that was currently popular, right? Only… Ando had never exactly shared Hiro's tastes in media, per se. He had loved watching the shows Hiro liked because they had watched those shows together--nine times out of ten, Hiro had more or less forced Ando to sit down with him and watch some American (or occasionally British) television program that he'd had no prior interest in. And nine times out of ten, the show in question hadn't grabbed Ando's attention whatsoever. What did grab his attention was the way Hiro's eyes shone as he gazed, transfixed, at the screen; the way his face lit up when the protagonist saved the day; the way he would sometimes grab Ando's hand during frightening scenes. That was the effect Hiro had on Ando. Whether it was watching subpar TV or getting shot at by real-world bad guys, Hiro had made everything worth it.

    But Hiro wasn't there anymore, and so there was nothing to make any mediocre television shows worth watching.

    "Whatever," Ando muttered aloud, and flicked the TV off.

    What was he doing with himself, still so hung up after all these years? He had a life outside of Hiro. He still went to the same boring office job as always, and rode his motorcycle around town trying to look cool, and tried to be a hero even though he knew he wasn't doing as good a job as Hiro would have wanted. Pathetic as it was, he had a life, so why couldn't he just move on and live it? Unlike his late husband, Ando couldn't change the past, so why was his heart still trapped in it?

    No sooner had these thoughts crossed his mind than a faint whooshing sound came from behind him, followed by the creak of his floorboards. In the empty blackness of the TV screen, a reflected figure came into view.

    Eyes widening at the sight of the reflection, Ando let out a soft gasp. For a moment, everything seemed to grind to a halt, and a series of realizations raced through his head. Somebody had just entered his apartment without coming in through the door. That meant they had just suddenly appeared--no, not just appeared-- _teleported._ And who could or would teleport into Ando's apartment other than…

   "Hiro?"

    The name escaped his lips as a whisper as he got to his feet and turned to see who had just materialized behind him. It didn't even feel like a conscious movement--it was as though he were being pulled like a magnet. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, hear the pounding rush of blood in his ears, and yet it felt like his entire body was frozen even as it turned and moved towards the two people--

     _Wait. Two people?_

_Oh._

    As soon as his eyes fell on them--two white men, one older and heavyset, looking a bit like a hippie; the other barely more than a kid, with a slender frame and light hair--it felt as though a fifty-pound weight had just been dropped directly onto his chest. Of course it wasn't Hiro. How could he have let himself think that, even for a moment? After so long, he should have known better than to get his hopes up. Swallowing hard, Ando froze in place with one hand on the back of the couch, legs poised to leap over it and into the arms of the man who, of course, wasn't there. He cursed himself again: Hiro's teleportation had sounded different than the noise that had just come from behind him. He should never have let himself think, even for an instant…

     He was jerked from his self-loathing with a start as the older man moved toward him, far more quickly than Ando would have expected. Flinching, Ando brought his hands up in front of his face and fired a jolt of electricity toward the intruder. The blast knocked him off his feet and sent him flying across the room; he skidded to a halt on his back and lay there, breathing heavily, for a few seconds before pushing himself back up. In that time, Ando walked over to where the other intruder stood. The younger one looked vaguely familiar, although not exceptionally so--but when his wide, frightened eyes locked onto Ando's, he knew in an instant that he had seen this young man before.

    "You're Hiro's kid, aren't you?"

    "I am?"

    The kid--Ando tried to remember what he'd introduced himself as on the day he'd shown up at his door to explain what had happened to Hiro--blinked up at him, showing not even the slightest hint of recognition. But it was the exact same face he'd had then, the same apologetic yet plaintive look.

    "Yeah, you're… Tommy, right?" The kid nodded, looking surprised; despite the circumstances, Ando felt a bit pleased with himself for having remembered. "Yeah, I remember you. You--" He grimaced, trying not to let any bitterness seep into his voice. It wasn't Tommy's fault, he reminded himself. It was nobody's fault. "You told me that my husband is dead, remember?"

    "Your husband…" Tommy echoed. "...Hiro?"

    Something like recognition flashed in his eyes, and then his eyes widened and he took a step backward. A couple feet away, the other intruder got to his feet and dusted himself off. Despite his Hawaiian shirt, ponytail, and lopsided flower crown, everything about the older man just screamed _bad guy._ Why would Hiro's kid be working with a villain? Why was he acting so strangely? And why had they come to Ando's apartment?! Although his head spun trying to make sense of the situation, there was no time to think things over. Grabbing Tommy by the shoulder, Ando extended his hand toward the older man and let a few sparks fizzle at his fingertips.

    "I don't know what you two are up to," he said. "But I would really like to know why you're trying to invade my home."

* * *

 

    This shouldn't have been happening.

    That was the first thought to go through Hiro's head as he stared at the two young adults standing before him. This wasn't right. He remembered staying behind to fend off his son's attackers, giving Tommy a chance to get away, and then… hadn't he died? He shouldn't be here, then. He certainly shouldn't have gone back inside that bizarre video game!

    The next few thoughts that went through his head were:

     _Wait, what happened to Tommy?_

_Why do I feel younger again?_

_Am I back in Tokyo now?_

And, finally:

     _Hold on, is that Micah Sanders?_

    It was that last question that Hiro put to words, although his voice hitched unexpectedly when he spoke, as if he were a dusty old gaming cartridge. He coughed, then tried again.

    "Are you Micah Sanders?" he asked the wide-eyed young man standing before him.

    Micah nodded slowly, then exchanged a bewildered look with his companion. Hiro thought he might have recognized her as well, although he couldn't recall if he'd ever gotten her name.

    "I thought your family name was Hawkins?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

    "Oh! Uh, yeah, sorry about that," Micah said. "I kind of… lied about that? Hawkins was my dad's last name," he added. "I thought it might not be great to use my real name in case you couldn't be trusted."

    "And do you think I'm to be trusted now?"

    "Of course! I mean, if you've got a power of your own, then I'm guessing you don't have a problem with that sort of thing."

    "You guess correctly," she replied, a slight smile tugging at her lips. "Although I don't blame you for being cautious."

    Hiro watched this exchange with mild fascination, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Looking down at himself, he discovered that he was back in that same all-black outfit like the one he'd worn in the bad future--which, if he ran some calculations, would now have been several years in the past. It was funny, the way time worked. In any case, he hoped to change out of the overly edgy getup as soon as possible. During his years as a typical father living in Odessa, Texas, USA (an "American Dad", one might say, except that Hiro had never much cared for that show) he had come to the conclusion that black really wasn't his colour. On the other hand, the satisfying weight of a katana strapped to his back? That was very much to his taste.

    "Do you--" Hiro momentarily broke off as the pair of young adults turned to look at him with startled expressions. He realized with a pang of bemusement that they must have gotten so caught up in their discussion that they'd forgotten he was there. "Er, do you know how long I've been gone? What year is it?"

    "It's the fall of 2019," Micah told him. "So judging by what your husband told me, I guess you've been gone a while. You, uh, should probably go and see him, by the way," he added, his voice dropping a few decibels. "He kind of thinks you're dead."

     _Oh._ Although he probably could have guessed as much, the confirmation hit him like a sudden snowfall in his heart. He had suddenly disappeared and then been gone for years, after all… and as much as he sometimes wished otherwise, Ando didn't share Hiro's optimism. It probably wouldn't be like him to hold out hope for Hiro's return for that long. Grimacing, Hiro looked around at the room he had rematerialized in--it looked like the backroom of a store--and, once he had located the door, headed toward it. Although worry for Tommy still weighed heavy on his mind, he didn't even know where the boy was; seeking him out would have to wait. But, assuming his husband hadn't moved house during Hiro's absence, he knew where Ando was. And he had to go see him, to let him know that he was okay. He _had_ to.

    He opened the door and stepped out into the main area of the store, but before he could leave, the young woman (he still couldn't remember her name, and she wasn't wearing a name tag) ran up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Micah followed after her and hung back a few feet, still looking pretty perplexed by the whole situation. Hiro could hardly blame him for that; he didn't really understand it himself.

    "Excuse me, sir," she said, giving him an anxious look. "Where are you going? You can't just walk out there dressed like that!"

    She motioned to the katana strapped to his back, which Hiro had to admit would probably draw a little attention. He would have just teleported straight over to his and Ando's apartment, but he didn't know if he currently had his powers (he seemed to lose them every five minutes, and it was starting to get annoying) and he didn't want to look like an idiot trying and failing to use them.

    "If anyone asks, I'll pretend to be a cosplayer," he decided, stepping away from the young woman and toward the store's front door. "I'll change clothes when I get home. But first, I need to get there."

    Not waiting for a response, he stepped out the door and started down the side of the road in the direction of the apartment complex he and his husband called home.

    The streets of Tokyo looked much the way they always had--busy, of course, with people walking, biking, and driving in droves beneath the flashy neon signs and billboards. Now that he really thought it over, it wasn't that much different from New York, and he briefly wondered just why he preferred America to his home country anyway. However, as soon as the question crossed his mind, he stopped and shook his head. What was he thinking? Obviously, it was because America made better comic books! But aside from all of that, as familiar as his surroundings were, Hiro couldn't pin down exactly what part of the city he was in, let alone what street he was on. He didn't recognize any familiar storefronts or other landmarks, and he wasn't sure if that was because the city had changed in his absence or if he just hadn't gone to this part of town very often. In any case, even as he continued walking along, Hiro eventually had to admit that he was kind of extremely lost.

    He was also kind of hungry, he realized upon passing by a row of food stands. His stomach twinged as salty and savoury scents drifted his way, and he licked his lips, glancing hesitantly toward a vendor selling deep-fried waffle pops. But of course, he didn't have any money, did he? Hiro reached into the billowy pockets of his garb just to check, and when his hands came away empty, he sighed and continued on his way.

     He'd had a few dollars on him when he had--he didn't want to say "died", but he supposed that was technically what had happened. He'd had a wedding ring on his finger, too, just like he had before getting sucked into the game in the first place. Why the game automatically put its players in a default outfit with no items in their inventory, Hiro could understand, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He supposed he owed that bizarre video game his life now, but he still couldn't help feeling that it had _ruined_ his life in more ways than it had saved it.

* * *

 

    All that Shema Bizimungu could think as she sat slumped against the cold steel wall of an elevator was that the hospital visit had very much not gone the way it was supposed to.

    Even before their parents had sent them away as kids to escape the genocide in their country, Shema and her sister had never gotten along very well. But Shema had always gotten along with her sister's kids, and when her sister and brother-in-law had been injured in a car crash a few weeks ago, of course she had agreed to look after the kids for them while they recovered. And of course she had taken them to visit their recuperating parents. But then… nothing could have prepared her for the sight of a newly dead body being flung across a hospital room by a woman with glowing purple claws. Even more so, nothing could have prepared her for the face that maniacal woman bore. She didn't know how Niki (or whatever her real name was) had gotten out of the lake and become solid flesh again, nor why she would attack innocent people. All she knew was that her past--the past she had tried so hard to put behind her when she divorced Jeff the year before--had come back to tear her to shreds.

    Of course, her first course of action had been getting the children to safety. Then she had tried to look for help, only to be practically trampled by throngs of fleeing staff and patients. Stunned and overwhelmed, she had stood still as though rooted to the spot as Niki (or whoever she really was) approached her with those glistening, bloodstained claws. It was only after she had felt them pierce into her that she had turned and ran, and of course by then it was too late. She had gotten to an elevator quick enough to outrun being slashed again, but by the time the doors had closed in front of her, the poison had begun to circulate. It wasn't even a deep cut--just a shallow gash running down her left arm--but it would be a fatal one nonetheless.

    Now, as she sat in the elevator and gazed out its open doors with blurring vision, she could only hope that the children were alright. Of course, it all depended on whether or not Niki (whatever her true identity may have been, that was still the only way Shema could think of her) had gotten inside the room where they hid. If she hadn't, then they would be fine. If she had, well… Shema was almost glad to think she would die before she found out. She could allow herself to think that they were still safe and sound.

    A ripple of nausea swept over her, and her body convulsed, blood and bile rising in her throat. Shema battled to draw in another breath and let it out slowly, then shut her eyes. She felt a seeping coldness spread through her, and her heart twinged as though struck with an arrow, and then she felt nothing but silent darkness.

    And then, what to her felt like a mere moment later, she felt a warm hand holding her wrist and heard the gentle and steady beeping of a machine above her head.

    Groaning, Shema blinked open her eyes to see a brunet man looking down at her. He didn't look like a doctor, in that he wasn't dressed like one at all, with casual clothes and bangs falling into his face. Maybe he was a doctor, though--one who was off-duty. He had a very kind look about him, and when she opened her eyes, he broke into a relieved grin.

    "Good," he said softly. "You're awake."

    "Who the…" Shema muttered, squinting up at the stranger gazing down at her. "Who the hell are you?"

    "My name is Peter," he said, brushing back his bangs as though it would make him look more professional. "How do you feel? Are you doing okay now?"

    "What? No, of course not! I just got--"

    She broke off, brows furrowing, as she realized that she felt perfectly fine. Looking around, she saw a tube sticking out of her arm attached to a blood bag, which in turn was hooked up with the machine above her head. Had he brought her into a hospital room (because that was definitely what her current surroundings looked like) and given her some sort of transfusion? But with the poison in her system, that shouldn't have been enough to heal her… unless he was an evo?

    "Excuse me, sir?" she asked, keeping a cautious eye on the man. He looked like a normal person, but then again, so had Niki. "Do you have some sort of healing powers?"

    "Good guess! My blood has a healing capacity, so transferring it to someone spreads it to them."

    "So you are one of those people."

    The man nodded. "I hope you don't have a problem with that," he said with a slight grimace. "I've already gotten flack for that recently, and I would rather not go through it again."

    Shema hesitated, wondering if she should ask if he knew Niki. Of course not all people with powers knew each other, but they must have had some sort of unified community, right? But maybe it would be better not to ask, she decided after taking a closer look at his visage. As kind as he looked, he also looked weary, with a slight redness around his eyes as though he had just been crying. If he had known Niki, he probably wasn't happy with what she had done to the hospital staff, and bringing it up might upset him further.

    "In any case, you should be good to go now," he told her. "Go back to your niece and nephew and head home, okay? Oh, and have a nice day."

    As he spoke, Shema's gaze wandered over to the bed beside her--or rather, one of the many beds; she realized now that she was in the infirmary, not a standard room. Lying in the bed to her right was an elderly man, also with a blood bag hooked up to him. His frail skin was mottled with deep cuts and bruises, all of which were slowly fading away. A wash of horror settled over Shema as she took a closer look at the old man and all the other beds surrounding her own. He wasn't breathing, and neither were many of the other people in the room. Rather than a steady beeping, the machines they were hooked up to produced a dull, steady drone. This evo was playing doctor with the dead.

    "You can't just do this, you know," Shema told him, gesturing at the bodies on the other beds as she sat up and disconnected the tube from her arm. "It's unethical."

    "I have to," he said, and the heaviness in his eyes grew exponentially more visible. "I have to save them--to save _somebody,_ even if I can't protect the people I care for."

    That was what he said, but what Shema heard was _"I have to save everybody."_ And for that, although she did not know this man at all, her heart swelled with sympathy for him.

    When she left the hospital, it was raining out--just a drizzle, but less than ideal seeing as she hadn't brought an umbrella, nor had the kids brought their raincoats. Taking her niece and nephew by their hands, she sprinted across the parking lot to a bus shelter. Somebody was already standing in the shelter: a tall, pale woman with short dark hair. She glanced over at Shema as she and the kids stepped into the bus shelter (it was a pretty small enclosure, so it was fairly cramped with all four of them) but after giving Shema a quick once-over, she shrugged and looked away.

    "Er, hello," Shema ventured, wondering what the woman's story was. She seemed to be watching for someone; she kept shooting furtive glances toward the doors of the hospital. "Are you waiting for somebody?"

    "Mm. Yes, you could say that," she said. She spoke slowly--carefully, you could say. "I believe my boyfriend is around here somewhere."

    "Was he a patient?"

    "No, not a patient." The woman hummed thoughtfully to herself and smiled slightly, and a shiver ran down Shema's spine--because of the cold, no doubt. "He's… a nurse, I suppose. In any case, he should be coming out soon."

    There was something suspicious about the way the woman spoke, as though she weren't telling the entire truth. Of course Shema knew she wasn't entitled to a stranger's personal information, but the person she was talking to--who she was somehow beginning to think might not really have been a woman at all--possessed this mysterious quality that compelled her to know more. However, just before she could open her mouth to ask more about this elusive boyfriend, her nephew tugged on her sleeve and pointed, diverting her attention to the bus coming down the road.

    "The bus is coming," he told her helpfully, pointing once more at the approaching vehicle.

    Shema nodded and reached into her purse for her bus pass. "Yup, I see it."

    None of this was her concern, she told herself as the bus pulled to a stop and opened its doors. Not anymore, at least. As harrowing as her experience at the hospital had been, she could put it behind her now and go on with her life. She didn't have to--she _shouldn't_ think about Niki, she told herself as she took a seat toward the front of the bus. As soon as she sat down, before the kids had even gotten into their seats properly, the bus lurched forward. See, life moved so fast, didn't it? So there was no point thinking about such things. She should really, really just stop thinking about Niki in particular, or whoever that woman had really been. It was over now. She should just…

* * *

 

    “So, um…” Micah followed Miko’s gaze down the street in the direction that Hiro had run off. “Do you want to go after him, Otomo-san?”

    Pursing her lips, Miko turned back to Micah and shook her head. After a moment of hesitation, she stepped back inside the shop and closed the door behind her.

    “I don’t think he wanted to stop and chat,” she said. “He was in a real hurry to get back to his husband.”

    “So you’re just going to let him walk away?” Micah frowned, glancing out the front window at the busy streets. “What if he gets lost?”

    Miko shrugged, crossing her arms. “It’s not my responsibility,” she said. “Besides, he’s a grown man; I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

    “Yeah, but…”

    Micah trailed off as his boss turned her back on him and walked across the shop to her backroom. He watched as she closed the backroom door and locked it, but he didn’t follow after her this time. The voice which had shouted in his mind when he was holding the video game had sounded so frightened, and even though he didn’t think it had been Hiro’s voice exactly, it must have been some manifestation of his unconscious psyche. Clearly the man was rattled and disoriented--even if he could look after himself, surely helping him regain his footing a little wouldn’t hurt?

    Micah glanced over at Miko, who was bustling around the shop like nothing had even happened, and then he looked back at the door. If he slipped out the door while his boss wasn’t looking and ran to catch up with Hiro, would he get in trouble when Miko noticed he was gone? And if he did get in trouble, would it even matter? After all, he had only applied for a job at the gaming store as part of an overly complicated plot to find Hiro and Ando. He had found them both now, albeit separately, so why would he need to stay at the store any longer? As nice as his stay had been, maybe it was time for him to leave Tokyo and head home.

    With that thought resting in his mind, Micah took a step toward the door and reached for the handle. The floor seemed to shift beneath his feet as he took another step forward, but he chalked it up to nerves and twisted the handle--

    --Only to freeze in place as Miko's shriek tore through the air, punctuated by the light thunk of a cardboard box hitting the floor.

    Heart seizing, he whipped around to see his boss standing stock-still as if rooted to the ground, a tipped-over empty box laying at her feet (she must have been carrying it before being startled). Micah followed her wide, horrified gaze to see a grotesque, swirling liquid mass seeping up through the floorboards.

    As soon as he laid eyes on it, his gut roiled. It held no solid shape, and it looked to be made half of water and half of flesh, but it moved as though it were alive. Its form was stained a dark purplish red, although the purple hue appeared to be dissipating as it rippled and spilled out onto the floor of the shop. At first he thought it was just going to keep growing larger, that more and more of this horrible substance would keep spilling up out of the floor until the shop was flooded. But after a few seconds--although, watching the thing emerge, the seconds seemed to drag on as long as hours--the mass convulsed and then lay still.

    For a long moment, all Micah could do was stare at the thing, muscles tensed and holding his breath. It lay only about two feet away from him, close enough that if it sprung back into action and attacked, he was certain that he wouldn't be able to get away in time. From her position across the room, Miko sucked in a sharp breath and took a step backward, swaying slightly on her feet as she did so.

    The mass lay still for a few moments more, gradually dissolving into a substantially less horrifying entirely liquid state. The diluted red and purple colouring that filled the watery shape continued to swirl madly within it, even as the thing itself was motionless. Slowly, the red colouring seemed to overpower the purple, and then both colours began to fade. With only a faint purple tinge left in its otherwise clear translucent form, the liquid mass stretched out into a humanoid shape.

    Then it convulsed again, in a shuddering motion like the surface of a lake during a storm, and all of sudden Micah was no longer looking at a terrifying body horror abomination. Instead, for the first time in two and a half years, he was looking at his mother's clone.

    "Holy shit," Micah whispered, letting out the breath he'd been holding in a low, shaky gasp.

    Tracy lay facedown, her body splayed out limply and dripping with polluted-looking water. For a few terrifying moments, she didn't move at all--not even a discernible rise and fall of her chest to indicate that she was breathing. Micah swallowed hard. From across the room, he heard Miko say something, but he didn't process her words. All he could do was stare down at Tracy, praying that she would move, even just the tiniest twitch of her fingertips. It felt almost like being at Niki's funeral and seeing her dead body all over again, even though the body belonged to a different woman, and this time it was soaked rather than charred. It still brought the same awful chill to Micah's soul.

    Then, after an indeterminable amount of time, a shudder wracked Tracy's body and she coughed, sending a dark purple liquid spilling out of her mouth. Grimacing, she raised a shaky hand to wipe the liquid off her lips, then turned to give Micah a weak smile.

    "Hey, Micah," she said; despite everything, she somehow managed to have a sardonic tone to her voice. "What's up?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Puzzle pieces, once scattered across the board, now begin to slide together--but not everyone can see the bigger picture yet. Kimiko's date gets an unexpected interruption. Claire regains a confusing memory. Mohinder makes sure everyone gets their reptile lore straight.

    Tokyo's bustling business district was as busy as ever, with the dull rabble of passersby's conversations blending into background noise. A chill autumn wind swept over the streets, pushing up dust and fallen leaves. Wincing slightly at the cold, Kimiko stuffed her hands into the pockets of her suit jacket. Next to her, Ji Woo shuddered, letting out a puff of air through chattering teeth; Kimiko raised her eyebrows, feeling a prickle of concern as she scoped out the way her date was dressed. Kimiko was at least wearing a scarf in addition to her suit jacket and dress pants (although in retrospect, she really shouldn't have dressed so formally for a trip to the movies) but Ji Woo was just wearing a t-shirt with a band logo on it and a pair of jean shorts.

    "That outfit won't do at all, Ji-chan," she said; she bit back a bemused smile when her date did a double take at the nickname. "I would let you borrow my jacket, but that's barely enough to keep _me_ warm as it is…" She hesitated, chewing her lip, as she gave her date's outfit another look. "Oh, what the hell? Better I be cold than you."

    As she said this, she shrugged off her suit jacket and laid it over Ji Woo's shoulders. As soon as the jacket was off, the cold began to nip at Kimiko through the sheer fabric of her light blue button-up, but she would manage to grin and bear it. Ji Woo blinked gratefully at her as she slipped the jacket on. The sleeves were a little long for her, so she rolled them up; while she was doing up the buttons, she fumbled with them a couple times, swearing under her breath. Kimiko observed her with a smile, and despite the cold, a warmth spread through her.

    "Y'know, the movie wasn't very good, was it?" Ji Woo said as they walked along the side of the road. She kicked at pebbles and leaves as she walked, often looking down at the ground and not watching for other passersby. "We should've just stayed home."

    "You think so?" Kimiko frowned, trying to ignore a twinge of disappointment. "I enjoyed going out with you."

    "What? Yeah, no, you're great! I'm just thinking maybe…" Ji Woo's eyes darted up to meet Kimiko's gaze, and her cheeks, already rosy from being out in the cold, grew a darker shade. "Maybe next time I could come over to your place and we could watch Netflix or something?"

    Kimiko's heart sped up. Doing her best not to appear as caught off guard as she was, she cleared her throat and carefully considered her response. She had been going out with Ji Woo for nearly a month now, after all--even if it seemed to be moving a little fast, their relationship was established well enough at this point. And Kimiko did really like Ji Woo, more than she had ever expected to after their first date. It was funny, in fact; Kimiko remembered Ji Woo being so chipper on that first date, and it had turned her off a bit, but the more time they had spent together, the more that persona had seemed to melt away. Ji Woo, Kimiko had come to discover, was the kind of woman who would cuss out a squirrel that stopped to chatter at her; who would laugh at a graphic scene in a movie; who would get so flustered that she'd forget her own profession. And she was beautiful to boot; her haircut perfectly accentuated the sharpness of her features, and the short-sleeved shirts she wore were tailored to show off a dazzling display of muscles. It would be the first time Kimiko would be bringing someone home with her in quite a while, but if it had to be anybody, it would probably have to be Ji Woo.

    Kimiko must have taken too long to answer, though, because when she looked back at Ji Woo, a vaguely sullen expression had settled over her face. Averting her gaze, she tugged on Kimiko's sleeve and pointed to a food vendor a few yards down the road.

    "Hey, I know we just spent a couple thousand yen at the movies, but are you hungry? Because I've got some cash on me, so I could treat you…"

    "Oh, that's not necessary," Kimiko told her. "The stocks have been doing well, so I have plenty of money in my account. I can pay."

    "Oh, for real? Damn, you're way too nice."

     _Too nice?_ The words brought an unexpected blush to Kimiko's cheeks. She couldn't think of a time when she had been described that way before. Too outspoken, perhaps, or too uptight, but never too _nice_. Did Ji Woo truly think so highly of her?

    As the thought crossed her mind, another strong gust swept through the air, bringing a shiver to Kimiko's skin and tugging at the scarf she had wrapped around her neck. From a short distance away, she heard somebody sneeze. She instinctively muttered "bless you" and continued on her way without stopping to look at the person as they passed her by.

    Fortunately for both of them, he did stop to look at her.

    Ji Woo kept on walking, half-captivating Kimiko with what she was saying: "It looks like they're selling octopus balls! Would you recommend those? I haven't really gotten the chance to try them yet. Most days, Bruce and I just order from fast food joints. Otherwise I might try to do more of my own cooking, but we've been so preoccupied the whole time we've been here…" Kimiko nodded along, not initially noticing the man who had just come to a halt a few feet ahead of her. Then, by chance, her gaze fell on him as she looked over to see what the prices at the food stand were like. She had to do a double take when she saw him--in the ridiculous black cloak he wore, she almost didn't recognize him at first. But she looked again, saw him standing there and knew beyond a doubt that it was him, and suddenly it felt as though she had just been dropped from the top of a twenty-story building.

    "Onee-san?" She saw her own disbelief reflected back in her brother's eyes as he spoke. "What are you doing here?"

    Looking back on that moment, Kimiko wished she could say that her breath caught in her throat or tears sprung up in her eyes, or even that her heart seemed to stop in her chest. Instead, she just stared at Hiro for a moment, taking in his familiar face and the ridiculous garb he was adorned in, and then a sudden wave of anger roiled in her gut.

    "What are _you_ doing here?!" she blurted. "You're dead!"

    "Kimiko?" Ji Woo asked, turning her head to look back at her. "What's going on?"

    "Oh! Are you on a date?" Excitement shone in Hiro's eyes as he stepped forward, glancing between Kimiko and Ji Woo. "So you finally got a girlfriend? Amazing!"

    "It's not--" Kimiko gulped, mind racing as she tried to take in what was happening. How could he be there, alive? Was this a trick? Or had he really been alive all this time, after all? "Er, yes, I am on a date. But that's not--"

    "Hey, wait a minute," Ji Woo interjected, eyes widening in recognition. "This guy wouldn't happen to be…?"

    Slowly, Kimiko nodded--although she could scarcely believe it herself, the man standing next to her, grinning away and bouncing up and down on his heels, couldn't have been anyone else.

    "Ji-chan," Kimiko said, laying a hand on his shoulder, "I'd like you to meet my brother, Hiro."

* * *

    Despite the sunrise's promise of a beautiful day, thick gray clouds had settled over the city of Thunder Bay by the time Peter had given the last patient a blood transfusion and sent them home. By that point, despite his permanently borrowed healing factor including the automatic replenishment of blood, he was beginning to feel dizzy from giving so much of it away. It was worth it, though, to help out people in need. It would always be worth it.

    As he left the hospital, he thought of what that woman--Shema--had said about his actions being unethical. He could understand where she was coming from, but he had to respectfully disagree. How was it any different from doctors resuscitating a patient whose heart had stopped? Thanks to him, twenty-four people would get to live on when they wouldn't have otherwise. Their loved ones would get to see them again. And as much as it was worth it, as it would be worth anything, it still wasn't enough. _It doesn't matter,_ Peter caught himself thinking for a moment as he walked through the hospital doors and out into a drizzling rain, but he quickly shook his head at that thought. It _mattered_ , it made a difference, but it wouldn't bring back any of the people Peter cared about. And now there was one more person he had let down, dissolved into the cracks on the tiled floor as though she'd never been there at all.

    After he had exited the hospital, he simply stood there for a moment and let the rain pour onto him. He had no coat or umbrella, nor did he have anything else on hand--no food, no money, no change of clothes. God, what had he been thinking, trying to run away from home like a rebellious teenager?

    (He actually had tried running away once as a teen, packing his bags and hopping on the midnight train. As soon as he'd stepped off the platform into what was to be the first stop on his journey, his parents' car had pulled up outside the train station. Arthur had cussed him out, and Angela had sat in the passenger seat looking like she wanted to say something, but had remained silent all through the drive home. It had taken him many years and the unveiling of a few well-kept family secrets to figure out how they had known he was going to run away and where we would go ahead of time. Peter had been grounded for a month, and as with most things when one was a teenager, it had seemed like the end of the world at the time.)

    But he wasn't a kid this time around; he was a grown man, and he had no excuse for his stupidity. Letting out a long sigh, he pushed his rain-slicked hair out of his eyes and cast his gaze skyward. It would be hard to fly in such weather, but he had to get back to the cottage sooner rather than later. Across the parking lot was a bus shelter; he didn't have a bus pass, and he couldn't pay for a ride--and besides, there was nowhere else in Thunder Bay that he had any particular desire to go--but maybe it would be a good spot to wait out the rain.

    After a quick half-jog over to the bus shelter, Peter stepped inside, giving a polite smile and wave to the woman who was already standing inside. Although she wasn't anyone he knew, there was something remarkably familiar about her countenance. She looked over at him and arched an eyebrow.

    "So," she said in a sardonic drawl, "How about this weather?"

    "Yeah, it's a pain, alright," Peter agreed. He felt a pang of unease as the strange woman regarded him like she was trying to size him up. "It would've been more thematically appropriate a couple hours ago, but nature doesn't usually care about narrative cinema."

    "Oh, I think the rain is fitting enough," she said, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head ever so slightly. "It reflects your tortured soul, isn't that right, Peter?"

    Peter blinked, momentarily bewildered. How did this stranger know his name? Then the person he was talking to blinked as well, slowly, in an almost catlike fashion, and a smirk tugged at the corners of their lips. Such a subtle mannerism, and yet unmistakable. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved, disappointed, or neither, but he couldn't help thinking that he should have known.

    "Sylar," he murmured, stepping forward and laying a hand on his boyfriend’s wrist.

    "Congratulations," Sylar purred, his voice deepening as he slipped back into his regular appearance. "You solved my shapeshifting puzzle."

    Smiling, Peter sighed and shook his head. "You could have just confronted me directly, you know," he said. "How'd you know where I was, anyway?"

    "Oh, I just used process of elimination. I was about to fly all the way around the globe looking for you, but then I figured I would check the next town over first."

     There was a twinkle of mischief in Sylar's eye as he spoke, but then it faded, and he let out a heavy sigh. Peter hesitated, sensing that his boyfriend wanted him to say something but unsure of what to say. Was Sylar looking for an apology? Peter sure as hell hoped not, because he wasn't going to get one. He didn't want to fight with his boyfriend, he really didn't, but he knew that he had done the right thing. Even if it had been through sheer coincidence, he had arrived at the Thunder Bay General Hospital just in time to save dozens of people; if he hadn't been there, their lives would have been lost. Surely Sylar could see that?

    "Peter," Sylar said in a half-whisper after several long moments of silence. "Why are you trembling?"

    "What? I'm not--" Peter began, only to break off as he looked down at his hand. Sure enough, his fingers, still loosely twined around Sylar's wrist, were shaking. A sudden shiver ran down his spine as he looked back at Sylar--the same man whose very name had once struck terror into his heart.

    "You're not afraid of me, are you?" Sylar kept his voice level, but Peter could feel emotions rolling off him in waves, and see the beginnings of heartbreak in his eyes. "You know I'm not someone to be afraid of anymore."

    "Oh, for God's sake, Sylar," Peter muttered, repositioning his grip from Sylar’s wrist to his hand. "Of course I know that! I'm shivering because it's cold out, you see?"

    To demonstrate, he stepped away from Sylar and unzipped his jacket. A chill wind swept over the hospital parking lot, and Peter shuddered; he wondered if his breath would have been visible if it weren't raining. A look of bemusement crossed Sylar's face, and he grabbed the zipper of Peter's jacket and pulled it back up.

    "Alright, no need to give yourself a chill," he chided. Then he paused, holding Peter's gaze for a long moment. Peter hadn't seen his boyfriend look so anxious in a long time, and his heart swelled with sympathy. "…You _will_ come back to the cottage with me, won't you?"

    "Of course I will," Peter said, bringing his hand up to cup Sylar's cheek. "But it's okay if I leave again, right?"

    "It…" Sylar hesitated, biting his lip. His gaze flickered up and down, as though he were assessing Peter and trying to understand what was currently making him tick. "I would rather you didn't. Not without me. But," he went on, his gaze softening as he raised his hand to place it atop Peter's, "If it's what you really want, then yes. You can leave. Just, please… tell me next time, okay?"

    Peter nodded, a wave of relief washing over him.

    "Okay, then," he said slowly. "Now that that's settled, should we go home?"

    "Hmm… sounds like a plan," Sylar said, a smile creeping onto his face. "But while we're in good old T-Bay, maybe we could grab a persian first?"

    "You know, Sylar," Peter replied, giving his boyfriend's hand a gentle squeeze, "I'd really love that."

     _And I really love you_ , he thought--and although he didn't say the words aloud, he could tell that Sylar knew. At this point, it really went without saying.

* * *

    "Seriously, Mom, you don't have to do this. I can run my own bath."

    "Oh, nonsense," Sandra tittered, not looking up from the water pouring from the faucet into the bathtub. She stuck her hand in the water and winced slightly. "Hmm, is this too cold?"

    "I mean it!" Claire insisted, crossing her arms. "I'm almost thirty now, you know."

    "I know, I know," Sandra sighed. "But you must have been through so much lately… you deserve to relax and recuperate."

    "Well… I guess you're right," Claire admitted. On her road trip with Mohinder, most of the hotels they'd stayed at didn't have hot water available. She hadn't had a decent shower since she'd woken up in the woods a few weeks ago, let alone a bath. "But you don't need to pamper me too much, okay? I'm not your little girl anymore."

    Sandra glanced up at her, raising her eyebrows. "Don't let your father hear you saying that," she said. "I think he'd have a heart attack."

    Although Claire chuckled at her mother's joking tone, the mention of Noah reminded her of how she still hadn't gotten the chance to talk to him. She had tried calling him earlier, but he hadn't been picking up. It made sense--it was the middle of the workday, after all--but she'd still felt a pang of disappointment upon hearing his phone go to voicemail. (She hadn't left any messages, because somehow that didn't feel right. If he was going to be hearing her voice for the first time in years, even if it had to be over the phone, it shouldn't be in a voicemail.) She planned to call him again in the evening; hopefully he would pick up then.

    "Now, don't just stand there," Sandra continued, turning her attention back to the faucet as she twisted it slightly from one side to the other. "Go on and test the temperature."

    "Alright, alright." Claire knelt down beside the tub and stuck her hand in the water. It was just a few degrees above lukewarm--not bad, but she did prefer it hotter. "I guess I could do with a little more heat."

    "That's what I thought," Sandra said, cranking the faucet to the left. The tub was still only about halfway full, but it was steadily getting fuller. "And how deep do you want it?"

    "Honestly, Mom--" Claire began, then trailed off as she realized that no amount of assurances would stop Sandra from fussing over her. "…Not too full, I guess. You can probably turn the water off anytime now."

    A few minutes later, once Sandra had turned the water off and left the room, Claire stripped off her clothes--they were still grass-stained from the previous night, and she could only hope it would come out in the wash--and hung them up on the back of the bathroom door. She lowered herself into the tub gingerly; the bathwater was surprisingly hot to the touch, and she flinched when her skin made contact with it. Once she was submerged, she leaned her head back and let out a sigh of contentment. Even if the water was hot enough to bring an uncomfortable prickle to her skin--the kind of everyday pain she supposed she’d have to become reaccustomed to--she could already feel the dirt and sweat and grime dissolving off her. After the way she'd spent the past few weeks, it was paradise by comparison. Combined with the weightless sensation of being submerged in the water, it almost felt like a kind of _rebirth_ \--

*

    _\--The two people standing in front of Claire grinned expectantly at her. The person on the left was a muscular woman with a sandy complexion and a bleached-blonde crew cut. The one on the right was a pale man with a beer gut and graying hair adorned with a wreath of plastic flowers. They wore matching black jackets with teal highlights, and the man was holding a third jacket that looked about the right size to fit Claire. She blinked, rubbing her eyes to clear her vision, then repeated her question._

_"Why me? What do you need from me?"_

_"Isn't it obvious?" the woman demanded, raising her eyebrows and making a gesture at Claire like someone from an infomercial. "Your power can help us out tremendously! With your healing capabilities, you can go on solo missions without risk. It's gonna change the whole game!"_

_As she spoke, her companion nodded along eagerly. Claire frowned; although the last thing she remembered was mostly a blur, the memory of an overwhelming pain coursing through her body was fresh in her mind. Just to be certain, she pinched herself in the arm as a test. Sure enough, she felt a tiny pinprick of pain where her nails closed around her skin--she was no longer invulnerable._

_"Um, I'm sorry," she said (although she wasn't sure why she was apologizing to these people; she didn't even know them, and they seriously gave her the creeps). "I don't think I have my powers anymore."_

_The man chuckled, clapping Claire on the shoulder and shoving the jacket into her arms._

_"Haha! Oh, we were just fooling with you," he said. "Me and Woo-woo know all about how and why you died."_

_"For fuck's sake, O'Brien," the woman hissed, elbowing her partner in the ribs. "Stop calling me that!"_

_"Eh, whatever," he muttered, waving his hand dismissively. "But listen, Ms. Bennet: even without your powers, we would still love for you to work with us. We hear you've got a lot of spunk, a lot of grit, and that your heart and head are in the right place."_

_"That's assuming I didn't screw up your brain when I resurrected you," his partner added. "Although I guess that's more your job, eh, O’Brien?"_

_For a long moment, all Claire could do was stare, looking back and forth between the two people and trying to take in everything they said. She wondered how long she had been dead for this time, but somehow she got the feeling it beat out her previous record by quite a bit. Her head still felt foggy, although it was gradually beginning to dissipate. And now these people--who had apparently just brought her back to life--were asking her to work for them? When she didn't even know who the hell they were, or what kind of "work" they did?_

_"I can see that you're a bit conflicted," the woman said--the understatement of the century. "Let's start from the top. My name is Ji Woo Liu, and my partner here is Bruce O'Brien. We run sort of a two-person vigilante operation where we locate people who are bigoted against folks like us, and we bring 'em to justice. Sound interesting?"_

_"You won't get paid for it, but we don't expect any payment from you either," Bruce put in. "The jackets are free! Cool, huh?"_

_"…Huh."_

_Claire could hardly believe she was thinking this, but it_ did _sound pretty cool. She assumed that by "people like us" Ji Woo meant those with powers. Making the world a safer place for them sounded like a noble goal, and as off-putting as these people were, they seemed nice enough. And if Ji Woo really had brought her back to life, she supposed she kind of owed them a debt._

_"Alright, then," she said slowly. "When do I start?"_

*

    Claire jerked back into reality with a start, eyes snapping open and sucking in a gasp of air. The memory resounded in her mind like the sound of a gunshot next to her ear. _What the hell was that?_ she wondered as she lay there, panting and staring blankly at the bathroom ceiling. Who were those people?!

    Glancing at the clock on the wall, she saw that only a few seconds had ticked by in the time that the memory had flooded her mind. The water in the tub was still warm--and yet a chill filled her body now, shocking her right to the bone. Because as she replayed the suddenly regained memory over and over in her mind, a feeling of familiarity took hold of her. She _did_ know those people, she realized. She had no idea who they were, or what had happened between the scene that had just flashed through her mind and her waking up alone in the woods, but she was certain that she knew them.

    But who _were_ those people? And why had she forgotten them?

* * *

    For a long moment, all Ji Woo could do was glance back and forth between Kimiko and her brother. He was dressed like an edgy anime cosplayer, in a black trenchcoat with his hair slicked back and a katana strapped to his back, but his stupid grin was the same as the one from the photographs she and Bruce had collected when putting together their file on him. _This isn't right_ , she thought. _Hiro Nakamura isn't supposed to be alive!_ Their whole plan hinged on Hiro not being alive, or at the very least not being in the picture. If he _was_ alive, how were she and Bruce supposed to get away with kidnapping his husband?

    As she glanced anxiously between the siblings, Kimiko kept looking at Hiro and then blinking, as though she were expecting him to disappear. Considering his teleportation ability, it wouldn't have been unlikely, but he stayed put. Gradually, his smile faded, and his mouth quirked into a frown as all of them continued to stare awkwardly at each other.

    Finally, Kimiko laid her hand on Ji Woo's arm and said, "You know, Ji-chan, I think maybe you should go."

    At the exact same time, Hiro blurted, "Do you know where Ando is?"

    "How am I supposed to know?" Kimiko demanded, and suddenly Ji Woo felt less like a participant in the discussion and more like she was watching it on a television screen. "He's probably at work--either that or he's out riding his motorcycle around again."

     At that, Hiro's face lit back up. "He still uses the motorcycle?"

    "Yep. It's, ah, this whole vigilante act he puts on. But, listen, Hiro…" Kimiko stepped toward her brother, keeping her gaze fixed on him. Her eyes seemed to be searching for something, but judging by the soft sigh she let out, she must not have found it. "…I know you time travel a lot, but you do realize that several years have passed, don't you?"

    Hiro grimaced--a more somber expression than most of the photos in his file--and nodded.

    "That's why I need to get back to Ando. To let him know that I'm back."

    As this conversation transpired, Ji Woo slowly backed away. She knew that it wasn't her moment to listen in on, and her face heated with shame for even being there in what should have been a private moment between the Nakamura siblings. _No, wait,_ she reminded herself. _That's not the problem here._ The problem was that Hiro was still alive--or alive again; over the blood rushing in her head, she could just make out him explaining to Kimiko that he really had died at one point. Never mind the way Kimiko had always seemed so depressed when she talked about her brother, and now she had him back--that wasn't a good thing, Ji Woo reminded herself sharply, no matter how much she longed for Kimiko's happiness!

    Tugging Kimiko's suit jacket tighter around herself, Ji Woo turned on her heel and ran. She didn't know if Kimiko noticed her leave, or what she thought if she did notice, and she hated herself for caring so much about such things to begin with. Her heart pounded as loud as her feet against the pavement as she ran, filling her with a burning heat inside to match the biting cold of the autumn air. She had to get back to Bruce and tell him about this. They would have to call off the mission, or at least majorly rework their plan. With Hiro back on the scene, they would never get away with what they were planning!

    That was the mantra that she repeated to herself over and over as she ran, swerving past passersby and narrowly avoiding getting hit by a few cars as she dashed madly through the streets. She had to warn Bruce that Hiro was alive-- _warn_ him, because it was a _problem_ ; it would mess with their _plan_ \--never mind Kimiko's heart, it wasn't important to the _plan!_

    By the time she reached the hotel, she was thoroughly out of breath. Panting, she leaned against the building's outside wall and peeled Kimiko's jacket off of herself. She considered just throwing the jacket on the ground, but she figured it might have been expensive (never mind that Kimiko might be upset to lose her jacket, because _that didn't matter, damn it!_ ) so she tied it around her waist instead. After taking a moment to scrub sweat from her brow and generally collect herself, she straightened up and speed-walked into the hotel and down the hall to the room where she and Bruce were staying.

    The door to the hotel room was locked when she got there. She knocked on the door and waited for a response. Seconds ticked by, which she counted in her mind after the first few: _seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…_ There was no response. She knocked again, louder this time.

    "Hey, O'Brien!" she shouted. "You had better not have fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV again!"

    She waited another fifteen seconds, which she once again counted in her mind--nothing but silence from the other side of the door. Letting out a long sigh, she crossed her arms and tapped her foot against the floor. She supposed that warning her colleague about Hiro's reappearance could technically wait, as their plan had always been kind of a "play it by ear" thing anyway, but she sure would appreciate it if that fool would hurry up and let her in.

    After knocking once more for good measure, Ji Woo pressed her ear against the door and listened for the sound of the TV playing. Bruce liked to watch with the volume up high enough to practically blow out the speakers, which was fine if it was appropriately rowdy fare like a sports game, but not so much if it was a soap opera or anything featuring characters with annoying voices. Even though it would have been muffled by the wood of the door, the door wasn't thick enough to drown such a racket out completely. If Bruce was watching TV in there, she should have been able to hear it--but she didn't. Frowning, Ji Woo stepped back from the door. Maybe he was in the bathroom, or taking a nap, or…?

    Or maybe he had left.

    It certainly didn't _sound_ like there was anyone in there. Not that Ji Woo's ears were exceptionally great, but she really hadn't been able to hear any sounds at all coming from inside the hotel room. He wouldn't have done that, she told herself--they had both agreed not to leave the hotel room without telling the other first, and that both of them couldn't leave at the same time in case someone came along and discovered the kid they were holding captive inside the bedroom closet. Besides, Bruce had spent all his time up until that point sitting on the couch as though he were more vegetable than man. Why would he suddenly break his own rule and leave the hotel room unguarded? Unless…

    "O'Brien, you shithead!" Ji Woo growled, slamming her fists against the door. "You had better not have fucking betrayed me, you asshole!"

    From behind her came the sound of someone clearing their throat, and Ji Woo stiffened, half-expecting to see Bruce standing there glaring at her when she turned around. _"Me betraying you, Woo-woo?"_ he would say, putting on a sad, patronizing smile and shaking his head. _"No, I think it's you who's betrayed me by falling in love with Kimiko Nakamura. You weren't supposed to do that, Woo-woo, remember?"_ A shudder ran down her spine, and she winced, bracing herself for the sensation of her colleague's thick, oily hand clamping onto her shoulder at any moment.

    What she saw instead when she turned around, positioned against the horrid paisley wallpaper like a renaissance painting, were two young adults and an unconscious woman. They stood on either side of her, with one of her arms draped over each of her shoulders. The young adults, respectively, were a Japanese girl and a mixed-race guy with a medium-dark complexion. They wore matching uniforms that had "Otomo's Gaming Paradise" printed on the front. The unconscious woman--or maybe she was on the brink of consciousness, but she definitely seemed pretty out of it--was white, with blonde hair and a trendy-looking outfit. For whatever reason, she appeared to be soaking wet, whereas the other two were not. More alarmingly, a dark scarlet stain covered the front of the woman's light blue v-neck shirt, and Ji Woo was pretty sure that it wasn't from the woman spilling wine on herself. Immediately upon laying eyes on this trio, every speck of Ji Woo's anxiety about Hiro and Kimiko and Bruce and everything else was wiped away and replaced with sheer, utter bewilderment.

    "Um, hi there, ma'am," the young man said. He spoke fairly decent, if slightly clunky Japanese with an American accent. He then repeated himself in English before continuing, "What were you shouting about just now?"

    "Did you get locked out of your apartment?" his female companion added. "Maybe you could tell the folks at the front desk; they might be able to help you out."

    "Uh, yeah, maybe?" Narrowing her eyes, Ji Woo stepped toward the strange trio. Taking a closer look at the unconscious woman, she had faint purple lines criss-crossing her skin like veins. "I think a better question might be, what the hell's going on with her?"

     "Oh, her?" the young man tittered, putting on a nervous grin as he followed Ji Woo's gaze to the purple streaks on the woman's skin. "She, um, sucked the Saimyosho into her wind tunnel."

    "What?"

    "Sorry, we've gotta go!" he practically shouted, shifting the older woman's weight off his companion's back and entirely onto his own. "Nice talking to you!"

    "Seriously, Micah-kun?" his companion demanded as she ran after him. "Was that an anime reference?"

    Ji Woo watched them scamper away with mild bemusement and lingering confusion, but once they were out of her eyesight, she simply shrugged and turned her attention back to the locked door of her hotel room. Whatever was the matter with that woman, it was none of her concern--and not in the way that Kimiko wasn't technically her concern but really was anyway; no, this was something that Ji Woo legitimately did not care about. None of those people had cropped up in the files that she and Bruce had compiled. Ergo, it was safe to assume that none of them had any connection to the Nakamura-Masahashi family, and therefore weren't important to the plan.

    The suggestion about getting help at the front desk, as nice as it was, wouldn't be of any use either. The point wasn't that Ji Woo was locked out of her own apartment; the point was that Bruce was gone. So where the hell was that bastard? And what was he doing?

* * *

    Tommy's heart pounded as his gaze darted back and forth between the two men standing in the room with him. In front of him, Bruce reached into his back pocket for the pair of scissors he had taken with him--although Tommy couldn't see the scissors from his vantage point, he knew in an instant that that was what was happening. Meanwhile, at his side, their target aimed his free hand (that is to say, the hand not currently clutching Tommy's shoulder) at Bruce and charged up another lightning strike. Bruce seemed to be unharmed, but his clothes were singed where the electricity had struck him, and that hadn't even looked like a substantial jolt. If their target fired another attack, then maybe it would kill him. If not, it would knock him out, or at least keep him down for long enough--long enough for what, though? Tommy realized in that moment that he had no idea what he wanted to happen. But _would_ their target fire another bolt?

    "I'll ask you again," he said, and despite his confidence words, a tremble of anxiety was unmistakable in his voice. "What are you doing in my apartment?"

    Bruce stepped forward, putting on a big grin. He began to lift his arm out from behind his back, and Tommy suppressed a whimper, taking a step back as the glint of the scissors' blades caught his eye. Their target lowered his hand, and the red sparks at his fingertips disappeared. In a quick, fluid movement, Bruce drew the scissors out of his pocket and stepped closer towards him. Their target tensed, letting go of Tommy and taking a step back.

    "Oh, there's nothing to worry about," Bruce said, waving his left hand in the air dismissively as his right hand gripped the scissors tighter. "You see, my son here has these teleportation powers that manifested recently, and we've been teleporting all over the place testing them out. It's not the first time we've wound up in someone's living room by mistake!"

    He chuckled, and their target chuckled too, albeit a bit more uneasily. Bruce's lie sounded so natural, so believable--he must have gotten a lot of practice in over the years. Their target's hands now hung loose at his sides, without the tiniest fizzle of electricity in sight. Bruce took another step toward him. They were about an arm's length apart now.

    "Well, I would appreciate if you left," their target said. He glanced over at Tommy, then back at Bruce, and the corners of his mouth pulled into a suspicious frown. "And, uh, what are you doing with those scissors?"

    "What, these old things?" Grinning, Bruce opened and closed the scissors a couple times, stepping closer toward their target. "Oh, I just like to have them on hand. I'm a real craftsman, I'll have you know…"

    "He's going to stab you!"

    The exclamation tumbled out of Tommy's mouth before he could stop himself, and without him having realized he was going to say it beforehand. As soon as the words were spoken, Bruce's eyes locked onto Tommy, shining with heart-stopping malice. At the same time, their target turned to look at Tommy with wide, startled eyes.

    "Damn you, worthless piece of trash," Bruce muttered, taking the scissors out from behind his back and throwing them to the ground with a clatter. "What's the point of betraying me like this? You think your real family is going to show up and rescue you? Huh? Well, they're not! Nobody's going to save you!"

    As he spoke, he walked toward Tommy, who edged backward with a whimper. He felt like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck that was barrelling down the road towards him--maybe if he tried to get away now he could, but he was too paralyzed by fear to even consider running. All he could do was stare at his own reflection in Bruce's manic eyes as he advanced upon him, hands empty now but just as dangerous without a weapon as with one. He took one final step back before his knees wavered and gave out on him, sending him dropping to the ground with a soft thump, like a mallet striking his flesh.

    Bruce, too, took one final step before another burst of red lightning caught him in the chest and sent him flying back.

    This time, the bolt was larger, with a louder and deadlier crackle. Bruce didn't even get the chance to scream as it connected with him and propelled him backwards across the room. A heavy noise halfway between a crash and a crack rang out as he slammed against the wall, and then he slid down the wall to the ground and slumped over, chest sizzling in the spot where the bolt had struck.

    For a long moment, Tommy couldn't tear his eyes away from Bruce's body. He drew in long, ragged breaths and let them out in deathly gasps, expecting Bruce to get back up and come at him again with even more ferocity. But he didn't move--not even the tiniest twitch of a muscle--not even the rise and fall of his chest. It was over. Finally, after what felt like hours, Tommy swallowed back his apprehension and got to his feet, turning to face his target--or rather, the man who had just rescued him. He seemed just as stunned as Tommy was, eyes wide and breathing heavily, with his hand still outstretched as though ready to fire another blast if Bruce should suddenly spring back to life. When Tommy's gaze fell on him, he blinked as though snapping out of a trance and straightened up, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

    "Um, Sir? Thank you," Tommy said, giving the man a flustered sort of semi-bow. "Thank you so much! Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

    "Repay me? Um…" Brow crinkling, the man scratched the back of his neck with a confused frown. "I don't think so? If anything, I think you still need quite a bit more help."

    "Like what kind of help?"

     "Getting your memories back, for one thing," he said, and Tommy had to admit he couldn't argue with that. "But first, we should probably do something about, er… that."

    He nodded toward where Bruce still lay motionless in the corner of the room. Tommy's skin pricked as he followed his gaze, still half-expecting the defeated man to suddenly leap back into action.

    "I can teleport us out of here, if you'd like," Tommy offered. "Is there anywhere you think we should go, uh, Sir? You seemed to recognize me before, so do you know where I live or who my real family is?"

    "Well… I don't really know you, no," the man sighed. "The name's Ando, by the way. And like I said, we've only met once before: when you came here a few years ago to tell me what happened to my husband, Hiro."

    "Hiro was… my dad?" Tommy guessed. Even with his mind so full of static, saying it aloud felt so right that it was more of a statement than a question. "But he's dead?"

    "You definitely seemed to think so when you talked to me that day," Ando told him. Then he sighed again, glancing around the apartment as though worried that someone was listening in. "You also said that, biologically, you were Claire Bennet's son. So you probably know Noah. I don't have his phone number, but I think Professor Suresh does… let's see, do I still have Suresh's number?"

    He trailed off into a mumble as he spoke, turning away from Tommy and walking over to the coffee table, from where he picked up his cellphone and started swiping through it. Tommy hovered behind his shoulder, looking at the names listed in his contacts. There weren't a whole lot of names to be found, and the professor he had mentioned didn't appear to be among them.

    "Oh, that's right," Ando carried on under his breath, pinching his brow in concentration. "It was Hiro who had Mohinder's number--or, no, Hiro had Matt's number and Matt had Mohinder's… and then Peter had all our numbers, but he's still… I don't even know where he is, and… ah, damn it!"

    "Um, Mr. Lightning Man?" Tommy interjected. "I was able to get to your apartment without knowing its exact location, so if I just try to take us somewhere that feels like home, I might be able to get where I need to be."

    "You think so?" Ando glanced up from his list of contacts and set his phone back down. "Alright, then, let's try that."

    He walked over and laid a hand on Tommy's shoulder--not a restrictive grip like Bruce, but still firm and steady, as though he were quite used to being brought along on somebody's teleportation trips. After taking a couple of deep breaths in order to ground himself, Tommy closed his eyes and thought of a pace that made him feel safe. Nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds, but he concentrated harder and felt the familiar rush of a portal opening around him. Where would it lead? He had even less of an idea this time around, but once he got there, he was certain that he would open his eyes to find that all his problems had disappeared.

    This was, of course, not entirely the case.

* * *

    "What the hell?" Claire muttered aloud to herself as she sat in the bathtub, mind still swimming with confusion about the memory she'd regained. Then, louder and with more conviction: "And what the _fuck_?!"

    Repeating the question in her mind over and over, she lifted herself out of the bath and grabbed a towel off the rack, hastily wrapping it around herself without stopping to properly secure it before bursting through the bathroom door out into the hallway. She ran, dripping wet and leaving a trail of water behind her, her heart pounding as loud as her bare feet against the floor. Her bath could wait; she had to tell her mom and Lyle about this. Regardless of whether they would be able to make any sense of the memory, she still had to let them know--!

    "Mom! Lyle!" she exclaimed, barging into the living room with the towel beginning to slip down so that it no longer covered her chest. "I just remembered something that happened to me when I--"

    She broke off, voice shrivelling up and dying in her throat, as her gaze fell on the person sitting on the living room couch next to her brother. Lyle raised his eyebrows but otherwise didn't react to the sight of her exposed skin. The person next to him, meanwhile, was practically gawking, their jaw dangling open and their skin slowly turning strawberry red. And Claire couldn't blame them in the slightest, because she felt the exact same way. It was, after all, quite the… exciting first glance to get of your ex after so many years.

    Although the few mortifying seconds in which they stared at each other seemed to drag on for a lifetime, Claire was jerked out of it when Lyle loudly faked a cough. Blushing, she scrambled to pull the towel back up over her boobs and make sure she was fully covered up. Then, pointedly ignoring how fast her heart was hammering, she cleared her throat and folded her hands behind her back.

    "So, um… hey, Gretch," she said, doing her best not to meet Gretchen's gaze for fear of what she might or might not see in it (although in that moment, she hadn't the slightest idea what she did or didn't want to see in those eyes). "What, uh, what brings you here?"

    "Your, uh--you, I guess," she stammered, face still a remarkable shade of pink. "When I heard that Lyle had finally found you--that you were back in town. If I had been the one to find you, I bet he and your mom would've shown up wherever we were--I mean, wherever I was that you also happened to be."

    Flusteredness giving way to bewilderment, Claire looked back and forth between her brother and her ex. Although so many things had been happening at once that much of the day so far was a blur, she did seem to remember Lyle mentioning that he had been searching for her for quite some time, refusing to believe that she was really dead. But why would Gretchen have aided him in such a search? Their relationship hadn't exactly ended on a great note, so she couldn't imagine why she would want to help look for her.

    "You were looking for me?" she asked, brow furrowing slightly as she walked over to them. "Both of you, the whole time?"

    "Yeah, I thought we'd established that," Lyle said. He had his feet kicked up on the coffee table, and Claire had to battle back the sudden urge to tell him off for it. "But it was actually Gretchen who got me to keep going when I was almost about to give up."

    "You see, I didn't actually know you had died, since we'd fallen out of touch and all," Gretchen explained. "And I saw you in passing a few months after the fact. Come sit down," she added, scooting over to the edge of the couch and patting the spot beside her. "Don't worry, I'm not going to put my arm around you or anything."

    Claire's skin pricked with heat, but she complied, taking a seat between her brother and Gretchen. She noticed that Lyle moved over more to the opposite end of the couch as she sat down, as though to give her more room to sit farther from Gretchen--or perhaps to put distance between himself and the two of them.

    "Anyway, she ran into me at the grocery store the next day," he said. "And we got to talking a bit, and she said 'That reminds me, I saw Claire yesterday. How's she doing lately?' And I just kind of stared at her like, 'You're serious? This isn't some kinda twisted joke?' But nope, she really saw you!"

    "After he explained to me that you were supposedly dead, we both came to the same realization: you were out there somewhere, but someone was trying to hide you from the outside world," Gretchen concluded. "From that point on, we've been looking everywhere for you. Usually we travel together, but I didn't think the lead he was following last night was credible, so I stayed behind. But I've gotta say, it feels great to be proven wrong."

    She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and all of a sudden Claire felt just like she had back in her first year of college. _Get ahold of yourself,_ her brain commanded her heart. _Just because she cared enough about you to spend half a decade looking for you, doesn't mean she wants to get back together with you or anything!_ This thought was immediately followed by: _Oh, shit, do_ I _want to get back together with_ her _?_ And the answer, of course, was a resounding _yes_.

    "Say, Gretch?" she asked, brushing the edge of her hand up against Gretchen's. They were sandwiched together on the couch just close enough to give her plausible deniability, but judging by the way Gretchen's gaze immediately snapped up to meet hers, she somehow doubted that repression was going to play a huge role this time around. "All that time you spent looking for me… what were you planning to do when you found me?"

    "I--" Gretchen's breath hitched, and a blush rose once again in her cheeks. "I don't know. It depends on what you want--on what you want me to want."

    "She's like a dog chasing a car," Lyle put in, doing what Claire could only assume was supposed to be an impression of the Joker (she hoped for his sake that he was doing a deliberately lackluster impression for comedy purposes).

    Claire rolled her eyes at her brother, who snickered and then promptly averted his gaze. Nervousness momentarily forgotten, she turned back to Gretchen, grasping her hand and not daring to look away from her eyes, which seemed to glow like mystical gemstones. A million questions danced on the tip of her tongue, but rather than putting any of them to words, her lips pulled her in like a magnet toward the woman she had never expected to miss so much when they were apart.

    "Claire," Gretchen whispered, not moving an inch but giving Claire's hand a sudden tight squeeze. "When I saw you that time, before I knew you were supposed to be dead, did you see me?"

    "I don't remember," Claire replied. It was no lie; she still couldn't remember anything aside from the two people who had greeted her upon her waking up. "But I must not have seen you, or else I would have pulled over and…"

    "And what?"

    For a moment, Claire thought she knew what would happen next. _"And do this,"_ she would whisper, and then lean in and--in the case that Gretchen didn't draw back--kiss her. Instead, before she could overcome the pounding of her own heart for long enough to speak, there was a knock at the door and Sandra's muffled voice came from the other side.

    "I've got my arms full here; could one of you be a dear and let me in?"

    With the atmosphere of the moment promptly derailed, Claire scrambled off the couch, clutching the towel tighter around herself. With a jolt of mortification, she realized that she had been dripping water all over the floor and couch the whole time. Gretchen seemed to realize it too, as she blushed heavily, flicking water droplets off her jeans. Claire hurried over to the door, unlocked it, and let her mother in. Sandra blinked gratefully at her as she stepped inside, carrying two grocery bags in each hand.

    "Oh, my," she remarked as she shrugged her coat off and set the grocery bags down. "Why didn't you tell me Gretchen had come to visit? I would've left you kids alone if I'd known…"

    "Eh, don't worry about it," Lyle said, giving Claire a smirk which she responded to with a glower. "It's not like there was anything to interrupt, right?"

    "Right, yeah, sure," Claire muttered. "Anyways, I guess I should probably put some clothes on, huh?"

    Without waiting for a response, she hightailed it upstairs and into her bedroom. It was only once she had slammed the door shut behind her and collapsed onto her bed to try to catch her breath that she realized she had entirely forgotten to mention her regained memory--or to properly take her bath, for that matter. The latter was something she decided she had best return to, even though the water would no doubt have gone cold by now. The former, she told herself, could wait. It wasn't the kind of information she needed to worry her mom with. When she was finally able to talk to her dad, maybe she could tell him; it seemed like the kind of information Noah would be equipped to handle. For now, maybe it really would be best to just relax. She had kind of earned it, right?

* * *

    After their awkward run-in with the strange woman in the hallway, Micah and Miko managed to get Tracy inside Micah's hotel room and lay her down on the bed. Her condition didn't seem to be improving much at all, and although Micah couldn't have been farther from a medical professional, he was afraid her condition might have even been deteriorating. The strange purple colouration of her veins was growing darker, and her skin was heating up with fever. She tossed and turned on the grody sheets of the hotel bed, face contorted with discomfort. At least her body was holding a steady, solid shape, but considering that that was the most encouraging factor, Micah was pretty damn concerned.

    "Say, Micah-kun," Miko said as she stood back and watched Micah run cold water onto a cloth. "Should I… er, should I go?"

    "Go?" Micah looked over at her, blinking in confusion. "Why?"

    "Because I don't even know who this woman is, but you clearly do, so…" She sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I feel like I ought to leave you two alone."

    "You know _me_ , though," he pointed out. "And I know you. So, y'know, having you here is nice. It's better than being alone."

    With that, he turned the tap off and wrung the cloth out, then walked from the kitchen sink over to the bed where Tracy lay. Grimacing at the shallowness and shakiness of her breath, he brushed her hair back and laid the damp cloth across her forehead. She shuddered at the contact, and for a moment her skin shimmered and took on a watery consistency, but she quickly settled back into her normal state--such as it was. Seeing such a powerful woman looking so weak and vulnerable brought an awful churning sensation to Micah's gut. He had always suspected that his aunt had a few weaknesses, but he would rather not have been proven right.

    Letting out a sigh, Micah knelt down and propped his elbows on the edge of the bed, cupping his chin in his hands. Taking a closer look at Tracy, he could see that--aside from the purple lines snaking across her skin--her complexion was deathly pale. She was both dripping with sweat and had goosebumps on her arms. When bringing her into the room, Micah had stripped the blankets off the bed and laid her down onto the fitted sheet; he now debated whether or not to lay a blanket overtop her. In any case, the damp cloth didn't seem to be doing a whole lot of good, although it couldn't have been hurting either. _Maybe I just used the wrong temperature of water on the cloth_ , he thought, but he knew full well it was wishful thinking. Honestly, he had no idea whatsoever how to actually help Tracy.

    "By the way, Micah-kun," Miko said, "This wouldn't happen to be your aunt who you said you were buying a present for, would it?"

    "Yeah, it's her," Micah admitted. "Although I kind of lied about buying the game for her."

    "I see." Miko's voice was clipped--not exactly angry, but definitely not happy either. "Just like you lied about your last name."

    Micah nodded, gulping. He didn't turn to look at his perhaps-former boss, instead keeping a close eye on Tracy, but he heard her walk toward him and felt her lay a hand on his shoulder. He momentarily flinched at her touch, half-expecting her to slap him or at least cuss him out for being dishonest. Instead, she just sighed and said:

    "Oh, well. I guess it can't be helped."

    Micah did turn to look at her then, startled by the lack of negativity in her tone, and was amazed to see that she was smiling.

    "You mean you don't mind?"

    "Well, I kind of do mind," she told him. "But I understand why. You have to be careful who to tell your secrets to these days." Then, glancing at her wristwatch: "I don't suppose I can expect to see you back at the shop again?"

    "Probably not," Micah admitted. "But I'll try to stay in touch with you."

    "Alright, then," Miko said with a nod. "I've got to head back to the shop now and get back to work, but let me know if there are any changes with your aunt!"

    "Got it," Micah replied. Although he would have rather had her stay with him, he understood why she wanted to leave, and he wasn't about to stop her. "See you around, Otomo-san."

    Once Miko left and Micah was left alone with Tracy, the silence of the room settled in like a thick fog. He stayed with her for a long while, listening to the seconds tick by on the old clock mounted on the wall. The clock in question was a few hours early, and it had fooled him on multiple occasions into thinking he was late for work until he'd checked the time on his phone. He kept a close eye on the shallow but steady rise and fall of her chest, occasionally adjusting the cloth on her forehead but otherwise leaving her be. Even when his knees began to ache from kneeling on the floor for so long, he held his position, as though any movement from him would somehow doom her. He remained like that for long enough that he began to lose track of time, unsure if he'd been there for five minutes or an hour.

    Finally, after what felt like ages, she stirred and blinked open her eyes. Immediately Micah jerked to attention, hands poised and ready to adjust pillows or blankets or whatever she needed. At the pace of a snail inching its way across a sidewalk, Tracy turned her head his way and blinked blearily at him, making a sound that was halfway between a groan and a low whine. At her movement, the cloth slipped off her forehead and landed on the pillow next to her; Micah quickly grabbed the cloth and used it to dab at the sweat coating her face and neck. Tracy closed her eyes again and let out a quiet appreciative hum, lips curving into the slightest fraction of a smile.

    Her eyes remained closed for several seconds, during which her breathing remained slow and steady, and Micah thought she had fallen back asleep until she raised her arm to lay a hand on his shoulder. Despite her condition, the motion was smooth, and her grip on his shoulder was firm. She reopened her eyes just a crack and proceeded to speak.

    "You're a good kid, Micah." Her voice was faint, and there was a pained strain to it that made his heart clench, but he smiled nonetheless at the fact that she was speaking at all. "Although I guess you're not much of a kid anymore."

    "No, I'm not," he agreed.

    "All these people trying to save me… makes me feel like I'm a really big deal. Heh," she huffed, a sort of weak half-laugh. "I'm hardly worth all the fuss. But thanks anyway."

    "Who else was trying to save you?" Micah asked. "And, um, where exactly have you been? What happened to you? Nobody's been able to reach you for two years!"

    "Hey, now… one question at a time," Tracy said. She took a few deep breaths in and out, then coughed and grimaced. "I was in a lake, more or less. It's a long story. Basically, I got stabbed."

    "Stabbed?" Micah echoed, eyes widening in horror. Considering the sizable bloodstain on the front of her shirt, it definitely made sense, but that didn't explain all the other symptoms she was exhibiting. "Was it, like, with a poisoned blade?"

    "What? No, no, nothing like that," she said. Her words were beginning to slur a bit and her gaze was quickly losing its sharpness. "Y'see, I was in the lake because I got stabbed. But that was years ago. And then you'll never guess who shows up a few days ago. You remember Peter Petrelli, right?"

    "Sure, of course I do," he said. "He and Sylar have both been totally off the grid for years, though. How did he end up in the same place as you?"

     "Mm. That's the funny thing," she said, a faint smile playing at the edges of her lips. As she spoke, her voice gradually began to dwindle. "The whole time we were just a few miles away from each other. Or, wait, sorry-- _kilometres_. Funny how things… work out, huh…?"

    "And what happened?" Micah pressed. "He didn't hurt you, did he? I mean, from what I know of him, he's basically the most heroic person out there. So how did you end up all… like this?"

    He waved his hand at Tracy in a vague gesture, only to realize that her eyes were closed again. As if on cue, her hand fell away from Micah's shoulder and flopped down to dangle limply off the edge of the bed. For a second, Micah's blood ran cold until he saw that she was still breathing, albeit just as shallow and shakily as before.

    Sighing, he took one of the blankets that were bunched up at the foot of the bed and brought it up to cover her. Then he stood up and took the damp cloth back into the kitchen, where he ran it under colder water than the first time, wrung it out again, and went back over to Tracy to lay it back on her forehead. With her head lolling to the side, it was harder to get it to stay in place this time, so he sat down on the edge of the bed and held it in position himself. As he sat there, watching the slow and barely visible rise and fall of his aunt's blood-soaked chest, he analyzed what she had told him.

    Assuming he hadn't undergone any drastic personality changes in his absence, Peter must have been one of the people Tracy had mentioned as trying to save her. And since he and Sylar were probably still together, and Sylar possessed a healing factor among other abilities, a transfusion of either man's blood would be able to cure Tracy of whatever strange venom was ailing her. So all Micah had to do was find them. Sure, they had been so off-the-grid that not even Peter's own mother or any of his friends had communicated with him for nearly a decade, but Micah had already found Hiro Nakamura, and that guy was supposed to be dead. So how much harder could it be to find Peter and Sylar?

    Well, he supposed he was going to find out the answer to that soon enough.

* * *

    For a long while, everything seemed to be a blur.

    It was terribly hot and dreadfully cold all at once; blindingly bright and dark as the void. Mohinder had no idea where he was, how he had gotten there, or what exactly was happening to him. The only things he was remotely cognizant of were a pair of gentle hands at work upon his body like Pygmalion carving his lover, and a soft voice speaking to him when the owner of the voice thought he wasn't listening. It was a familiar voice, and they were familiar hands as well, and so he chalked it up to a fever dream and tried not to think too much of it.

    When he properly woke up, he was lying in the bottom bed of a bunk bed, with a large sweatshirt and his own labcoat draped over him like blankets. His right arm felt numb, and his head felt vaguely fuzzy. Somebody must have put him under a lot of painkillers--presumably the same person who had dressed the aforementioned arm into a cast. Judging by the cast's rather homemade look, he could surmise that it hadn't been a medical professional, and this hypothesis was backed up by the fact that, rather than any sort of medical facility, he appeared to be in… a trailer?

    Groaning, Mohinder sat up and gingerly raised himself out of bed, being careful not to put any weight on his injured arm. Rather than the garb he'd been dressed in the night he was shot, he was now adorned in a gray t-shirt with a faded band logo on the front and a pair of jean shorts--not skimpy ones, thank any higher power that may have existed, but ones that went down to just past the knee. He supposed that meant that the owner of this trailer, who had surgically removed the bullet from his arm and dressed the wound, had also dressed and undressed him. Despite everything, Mohinder's face heated up at the thought. Who would take such great care of him? For that matter, who did he want it to be?

    It was an average trailer on all accounts, perhaps a Winnebago or something of that ilk. It was neither exceptionally messy nor exceptionally tidy. There was a portable TV on the table, with a stack of DVDs next to it that included shows such as _Psych_ and _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ ; on another table was an empty cage with food and water bowls inside. Mohinder raised his eyebrows at that, wondering what sort of creature the cage was home to. He got his answer soon enough when he noticed a small tortoise plodding across the floor of the trailer towards him.

    "Why, hello there," Mohinder murmured, bending down and holding his uninjured arm out for the tortoise to investigate if it so desired. "Do you know where we are right now, my friend?"

    As it got closer to him, he noticed that it was wearing a little green collar with a tag on it. With a pang of bemusement, Mohinder read the name printed on the tag: _Aristurtle._

    "Oh, dear," he cooed, scooping the tortoise up into his arm. "As much as I appreciate that pun, somebody's owner needs to brush up on their animal taxonomy."

    Just as he said that, the trailer door swung open with a creak. Mohinder turned to see who had just stepped inside, only to have his gaze fall upon an impossible sight.

    " _Matthew?_ " he breathed, at the same time Matt blinked and then broke into a grin.

    "Oh, good, you're finally awake!" he said, stepping forward to lay a hand on Mohinder's bandaged arm. "You had me worried for a minute there, bud."

    "Matthew, I--what is--did you--" Mohinder stammered, unable to fully accept that he was seeing correctly and yet unable to deny that he was. The sentence he was finally able to get out made his cheeks heat up as soon as the words had left his mouth. "Did you know that this is actually a tortoise rather than a turtle?"

    "Wait, there's a difference?" Matt squinted at the tortoise, frowning. "I thought they were the same thing. But regardless of that," he went on, his attention refocusing on Mohinder, "It's really great to see you up and about again. Just promise you'll take it easy, okay? That bullet wound messed up your arm like hell, man. The bone was basically shattered, and if I hadn't found you, you might even have bled out inside your car."

    "So you operated on me, then?" he asked. "You--this is your trailer? You saved me?"

    "Yes, yes, and yes," Matt replied. Taking his hand off of Mohinder's arm, he gave him an amicable clap on the shoulder and shot him the sort of smile that a pair of college drinking buddies might exchange. "If you're up for it, why don't we step outside? I've got a little fire going that I'd hate to leave unattended."

    Mohinder swallowed hard, mind still reeling from the shock of seeing Matt again. Were it not for the solid touch of Matt's hand against him, he would never believe that what he was seeing was real. It wasn't the fact that Matt was alive that was truly the cause for disbelief. In this world, it was easy enough to fake one's death--especially when one had the ability to create psychic illusory projections--or even to return to life under the right circumstances. But before his death (or "death" in quotation marks, as the case may well have been) Matt's heart had become corrupted. Even though time had obviously passed since their last encounter, how had Matt managed to redeem himself and return to his former countenance? Could it really be so easy to go back to the way things had been before?

    "Mohinder?" Matt's voice was soft, unbearably so, as his gaze searched Mohinder's face. But it was only his gaze that was doing any searching; Mohinder didn't feel the slightest tingle in his brain to indicate that Matt was mentally probing him. "Are you doing okay?"

    "I--" Mohinder gulped, glancing down at his cast. Once the painkillers wore off, his arm would likely still hurt, and he couldn't imagine that it would heal perfectly anytime soon. Even so, it was far better than bleeding out on the floor of his car. "Yes, I believe I am."

    "Great," Matt said, relief glistening in his eyes as he, in a remarkably casual gesture, slipped his hand into Mohinder's. "I'll admit, I was… I was kinda worried about you for a while there. Really worried, actually. But if you're sure you're okay…"

    With that, he stepped back toward the trailer door and held the door open, motioning for Mohinder to step outside. It appeared that the trailer was parked in a small campsite--not a trailer park, per se, but not exactly roughing it out in the woods either. Sure enough, there was a firepit with a camping chair set up next to it and a decently sized fire blazing within. There was also a picnic table, upon which there was a can of beer and an unopened bag of potato chips. Mohinder realized just as he was stepping through the door that he was still carrying Aristurtle the tortoise, so he circled back and set the creature down in its cage before heading outside.

    "I had a lizard at one point," he remarked while Matt pulled up an extra camping chair by the fire. "It was originally my father's."

    "Right, you've told me about this before," Matt replied. "It had the same name as you, right? Whatever happened to it?"

    "Well, when you and Molly were living with me, I just didn't think it would be suitable to have the lizard around," Mohinder said. As he spoke, he blinked gratefully at Matt and sat down in the chair he'd pulled up. "Too many mouths to feed, and all that. I handed it over to an animal shelter--a humane one, naturally--before you moved in."

    "Huh. Well, that's one of life's great mysteries solved," Matt chuckled, grabbing his beer from the picnic table and easing into his own seat. "Do you want a beer or anything, by the way? There are some more in the trunk of the car."

    He nodded toward a car parked at the edge of the campsite. Mohinder had noticed it in his periphery upon exiting the trailer, but he hadn't paid it any mind, assuming that it wasn't Matt's car. It certainly looked different from the one he'd owned before--but that was to be expected, wasn't it? Vehicles these days weren't built to last forever. This car was a beige SUV with mud caked onto its tires and scratches on the hood and doors--as well as a few dents of notable size. It made Mohinder wonder exactly what Matt had been getting up to.

    "Just some water would be fine," he decided. "Alcohol in combination with painkillers may have negative effects on my body."

    "Oh, good point," said Matt. He paused, drumming his fingers on the arm of his camping chair and looking at his beer can without actually taking a sip. "So, I suppose you're wondering a few things, huh?"

    "Well, yes, I would say so," Mohinder said. "Especially since you're the second person I've encountered in as many months who's supposed to be dead."

    At that, Matt's eyes widened. "The _second_ person? Who was the first?"

    "Claire Bennet, if you can believe it. We were travelling together, in fact--until we were ambushed one night, hence my being attacked and our being separated."

    Matt hummed thoughtfully to himself, not looking nearly as surprised as Mohinder had expected at the revelation. He took a sip of his beer, then set the can in the camping chair's arm pouch and folded his hands in his lap.

    "Claire, huh… that figures."

    "How so?"

    "I'm just glad to know I wasn't seeing things on that day," Matt said. "You see, Claire is the reason I'm sitting here across from you right now. She's the one who saved me."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those who once moved directionlessly now move with a purpose, setting the stage for things to come. The Nakamura siblings share a kind-of heart-to-heart. Tommy explains his situation. Mohinder and Matt have a fireside chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry to take so long between updates! Hopefully I'll be able to get back on track during winter break, but alas, no promises... (I do promise, however, to write this dang fic to completion even if it takes a while!)

    "She… saved you?" Mohinder echoed, his brow crinkling with confusion.

    Matt nodded. His memory of the event was a blur, especially since the vehicular collision had left him with a mild concussion, but the young woman's concerned face stood out clearly in his mind. He didn't understand why she had saved him, or why she had been there to do so in the first place, both in terms of her being alive and her geographical proximity to him. She had died in Odessa, hadn't she? So how…? But he was sure that it had been Claire, or at least he was fairly sure. Over the years, the memory of his near-death experience had come to feel more like a dream than a real event, even though he had scars to prove it from the shattered glass of his car windows. In any case, that event had turned his life around. He had realized that there were still good people out there, heroes who would save someone with no ulterior motive. And he had been such a man once, he remembered--so why not try to become one again?

    Mohinder remained mostly silent, a contemplative expression on his face, as Matt relayed the story as best as he could remember.

    "She told me to project an image of myself dying, which I guess I did. But doing that drained my energy and I passed out… I guess she got me to a hospital or something, but the next thing I remember was walking outside and seeing a newspaper stand with a headline saying I had died."

    "Does your family know you're alive?"

    "Yeah, I let Janice know I was okay, but I haven't been able to see her or Mattie at all since then," he sighed. "And I made her promise not to tell anyone else that I was still around. Since then, I've been keeping a low profile--mostly just going from place to place, trying to save people when I can."

    "Why can't people know you're alive?" Mohinder asked. "Are you afraid that somebody will track you down?"

    "Kind of, yeah," Matt admitted. "I dunno… like I said, my memory of that car crash is a blur, but I somehow get the impression that it wasn't an accident."

    "…And you trust me to keep your secret?"

    "Of course," he replied. "Why wouldn't I trust you?"

    He was playing dumb with that question, and he was pretty sure Mohinder could tell. From the way Mohinder's eyes shifted around without ever quite meeting his gaze, Matt knew even without using his powers that they were both thinking the same thing. Yes, Matt put the same level of trust in Mohinder that he did in his wife--if not even more. After all, they'd once had just as close a relationship, even though it hadn't lasted nearly as long. In fact, it hadn't even really been made official. But they had both felt it, Matt was sure, and he could only hope that Mohinder felt it too. Being with Mohinder now, taking in the sight of his handsome features and hearing his smooth voice, Matt's heart burned with a rekindled desire. He wished that they had lasted longer the first time around, that either one of them had been bold enough to bridge the unspoken gap between them, and he desperately hoped that this time around things wouldn't end the same way.

    "Well, Matthew, it's just that a lot of time has passed," Mohinder said. He spoke slowly, as though he were choosing his words with great deliberation. "And the last time we met, if I recall correctly, you arrested me at a peaceful protest."

    At the mention of that, Matt grimaced, a knot of shame forming in his chest. _Of course,_ he thought. _He's not going to forgive me so easily. Things can't go back to the way they were, not after I've been such an asshole._

    "But it's good to see I've fallen back into your favour," Mohinder continued, and he met Matt's gaze with a smile that was unmistakably genuine and heartrendingly gorgeous. "I suppose it should be expected, since you did save my life."

    With that, he stood up and walked over to Matt's car, where he retrieved a water bottle from the cooler in the trunk. All the while, the fire crackled on, having died down considerably from its initial blaze but still going strong. Its warmth brought a flushed heat to Matt's skin, even as the cool autumn air pricked at him. At least, he assumed it was the fire that made his face heat up. But as Mohinder sat back down and raised the water bottle toward him in a "cheers" gesture, and the dappled sunlight shone through the trees and illuminated him just so, Matt wasn't so sure that the fire was the cause at all. At least, it probably wasn't the campfire that made his heart skip a beat and his stomach twist itself into knots. That much he could definitely chalk up to infatuation--or, if he were being entirely honest with himself, maybe even love.

* * *

    The first thing Tommy noticed about the room he rematerialized in was a savoury scent in the air. The second thing he noticed was the soft if somewhat off-key humming in time with the sizzle of a frying pan. From there, he took in the visuals of the room--walls in a sunny shade of yellow; countertops cluttered with bowls and dishes; a refrigerator covered in tacky magnets that held photographs in place. At the stove stood a woman, her hair tied back in a ponytail as she cooked and hummed to herself. Looking at her, even just from behind, even just being in this kitchen, sent an overwhelming wave of nostalgic longing crashing over Tommy, and he suddenly found himself blinking back tears without even knowing where he was.

    Although, actually, when he stopped to think about it, he _did_ know where he was. Where else? This was his home! How could he have forgotten it?

    Throat constricting with emotion, Tommy stepped toward the woman--his mother, he realized she must have been, even if the relation wasn't biological. He tried to think of an appropriate way to introduce himself, but came up empty. What could he say when his mind was still too much of a blur to properly remember her? When he didn't even know how close a relationship they'd had, or how long exactly he had been gone before this impending reunion?

    Tommy swallowed hard, then tried to reach out and tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. Now that he took a closer look, she was wearing earbuds, plugged into a phone that sat faceup on the counter. It looked like she was listening to music and humming along, and although it wasn't a song he recognized, he wouldn't have been surprised if he had once had the lyrics memorized. He realized that his hand had barely moved toward her, and he tried again to force it forward, to make himself move whatsoever, but he suddenly found himself rooted to the spot. _I can't do this_ , he thought. _I can't talk to her like this--I can't let her see me--not when my mind is scrambled like this!_

Either fortunately or unfortunately for him, however, destiny didn't give him the chance to opt out. With a quick, precise motion, she slid the freshly cooked omelette off the frying pan and onto a plate, then turned to reach for the ketchup bottle on the opposite counter--only for her gaze to fall directly onto Tommy.

    Immediately upon seeing him, her eyes widened, and then she broke into a grin. She set the plate down on the countertop and tugged her earbuds out, then pulled him into a hug. Tommy let out a shaky gasp, amazed by how familiar she was. It was as though his memories were an animal scrabbling desperately at a locked door, and he could hear their claws scraping against the wood, and yet he still couldn't find the key to open the door and let them in.

    "Oh, Tommy, what a nice surprise!" she exclaimed as she pulled away to hold him arm's length. "Why didn't you call ahead to tell me you were dropping by? I would've made enough for both of us if I'd known…"

    Her eyes shone with motherly affection, and Tommy found that he could no longer hold back the tears building up in his eyes. As he began to cry, her smile fell away, replaced by an expression of concern; she laid a hand on his cheek and gently thumbed away a tear rolling down his face.

    "Oh, dear, what's the matter?" she asked. "Are you alright? Did something happen?" Then, all of a sudden, her voice sharpened as her eyes moved past Tommy and locked onto the man standing behind him. "Who is this?! What's he doing here?"

    "Oh! Er, I'm sorry, Ma'am," Ando said. With a sheepish smile, he stepped forward and extended his hand for a shake. "I'm Ando Masahashi. I was a friend of your husband's."

    "Oh!" Recognition dawning in her eyes, she took his hand and gave it a firm shake. "It's wonderful to finally meet you! You wouldn't believe how much Hiro talked about you while we were together. Sometimes I had half a mind to think that if you ever came back into his life I'd have some competition!"

    She laughed, and Ando laughed as well, only in his case it was obviously forced. Tommy stood back and watched the exchange with a prevalent sense of secondhand embarrassment the likes of which he usually only got from sitcom characters. He noticed that both of them had identical wedding bands on their fingers, and logically he knew that that fact alone wouldn't tip them off to anything--after all, most wedding rings looked fairly similar aside from the overly fancy ones--but it was the kind of thing that he couldn't help overthinking once he noticed it.

    "By the way," Ando said, his tone and expression growing serious, "I know it was years ago, but I… I'm sorry for your loss, Ms…?"

    "Clarke," she told him. "Anne Clarke. And thank you, Mr. Masahashi--but as you said, it was years ago. I promise you, as much as I still miss Hiro, I'm doing quite fine on my own now."

    Ando momentarily flinched at that, but just as quickly he put on a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

    "Yes, of course. Nobody should stay hung up on a departed husband forever."

    As if on cue, a cellphone ringtone sounded from his pocket immediately after he spoke. Frowning, he took his phone out and glanced at it for a moment before turning it off and tucking it back in his pocket. In that time, Anne turned her attention back to Tommy.

    "So, what's this man doing with you?" she asked. "You're not hoping to set me up with him or anything, are you?”

    "What? No, of course not," Tommy said, brow crinkling with bewilderment that that would be her first thought. However, when he stopped to consider it from her perspective, he realized that it made a whole lot more sense than the truth he was about to tell her. "No, you see, how we ended up teaming up is kind of a long story…"

    "That reminds me," Anne interjected. "You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you okay? Did something happen at the college?"

    "I--I don't know," Tommy admitted.

    Once again he found himself fighting back tears, but for a different reason this time. Why could he still not remember anything? It wasn't fair! Hadn't he already been through enough? Didn't he deserve to go back to his normal life, whatever that even was?

    Anne narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, you don't know? What happened?! Was it something with your sister, or with your girlfriend, or…?"

    As she spoke, she smoothed his hair back, looking into his eyes as though searching for answers that neither of them had. Tommy could barely register the rest of her words, because _sister_ and _girlfriend_ stuck in his head and echoed like words shouted into a canyon. He had a sister? He had a girlfriend? And he was a college student, too, and his adoptive parents had both loved him so much--and the one who remained, his mother who was standing right in front of him and talking to him right now, still did. The series of realizations filled him with wonder, with exhilaration, and then with a cold rage as he realized that those awful people who'd held him captive had taken his whole life away.

    "I don't--" His voice hitched, suddenly clogged with tears as he held his mother's gaze. "I don't know. I can't remember."

    And yet, as he watched the way her face crumpled with confusion and concern, the feeling of familiarity in the back of his mind grew more intense. Whatever wall was holding him back from remembering was beginning to crumble; he could feel it. He only wished that the process could go more quickly.

* * *

     _"The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message after the tone."_

    "Aww, he's still not picking up," Hiro sighed. Not bothering to leave a fourth voicemail in as many minutes, he pressed the "end call" button and handed the phone back to Kimiko. "I hope he's okay…"

    "I'm sure he's fine," Kimiko said as she tucked her phone into her purse without taking her eyes off the road. "Like I said, he's probably busy."

    "How much longer do you think we'll be stuck in traffic for, anyway?" he asked, looking out the car window at the mass of other vehicles all stopped up at the intersection like gunk in a pipe. (With that pleasant piece of mental imagery in his head, he took another bite of the octopus balls Kimiko had bought for him at the food stand.)

    "How am I supposed to know?" she asked, an edge of irritation in her voice. "Regardless, we'll get there soon enough."

    As he chewed and swallowed the crispy yet rubbery sphere of cephalopod, Hiro suppressed a grimace at the taste. He didn't want to complain, because he did appreciate his sister's generosity, especially since it was the first food he'd eaten in… well, technically in years, he supposed. Even so, he would much rather have been eating just about anything else, particularly his wife's cooking. His _husband's_ cooking, maybe not quite so much--Ando had never been the best at domestic household chores--but Anne was nearly as skilled in the kitchen as she was at a patient's bedside.

    With that thought, a realization struck Hiro that lowered his mood even further than the disappointing food and getting stuck in traffic already had. His shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the carseat with a heavy sigh as it occurred to him: he couldn't just have two spouses. Well, maybe he could, technically--he knew that some people had multiple partners at the same time, and he wouldn't be opposed to adopting that lifestyle himself if his romantic prospects were up to it. But that was a big _if._ Would he have to choose between them? Or worse yet, since he had been gone for so long, would they have moved on and found new partners?

    As if on cue, Kimiko answered the latter question for him as she drummed her fingers against the dashboard and gazed out at the pile of cars surrounding them.

    "It's a miracle that you're back, you know," she told him. She still didn't look over at him, instead giving him a brief glance in the rearview mirror, and her outward expression remained stoic, but Hiro could hear the smile in her voice. "Especially for Ando. He's going to be so glad to see you again, Hiro--he's missed you so much."

    "Really?" The heaviness with which she spoke brought a prickle of concern to Hiro's heart. "He's been… he's been okay, I hope?"

     "I mean… not really, Hiro," Kimiko sighed. "You know how much he loves you--you're his favourite person in the world. With you gone, he hasn't known what to do with himself."

    Although part of Hiro was relieved at the confirmation that Ando still returned his feelings just as strongly, a much larger part of him didn't like the sound of what Kimiko was saying. Surely Ando wasn't _that_ hung up on him? Of course Hiro had missed Ando while he was away, and longed to go visit him on a daily basis, but he had still been able to find happiness in his new life. But judging by what Kimiko was saying, Ando had never found that same happiness. A sudden rush of intense guilt washed over Hiro at the realization, and he grimaced, squirming in his seat and averting his gaze from Kimiko.

    "I guess Fleetwood Mac was right," he muttered. "'I've been scared of changes, 'cause I built my life around you'."

     "Fleetwood Mac? Isn't that a video game character?" Kimiko asked.

    Despite their serious discussion, Hiro had to stifle a snort at that remark.

     "What? No! How do you not know Fleetwood Mac?" he said incredulously. "They were one of the most iconic bands of their time!"

    "Well, I've never heard of them," Kimiko muttered. On the road outside the car, a few of the vehicles surrounding them began to edge forward, but she stayed where she was at the behest of the cars behind them. "You can't expect me to know all these American things, Hiro," she added with a surprising sharp edge to her tone. "I'm not the one who spent five years there."

    "It was actually more like fifteen years," he told her. "You see, after Claire Bennet gave birth to a pair of twins and died in the process--"

    "Hiro, I don't _care_!" she interrupted him, slamming her hands against the dashboard. Hiro flinched at the outburst--had he said something wrong? But he hadn't meant to…

    More of the cars outside moved forward, accelerating from a snail's pace to a steady crawl, but Kimiko kept her foot off the gas pedal. For the first time since climbing into the car, she turned in her seat to face Hiro, and the look on her face took him aback even more than her sudden flare of anger. Because she didn't look angry at all, not really. She looked more sad than anything else, and Hiro's eyes widened as he realized that there were tears in her eyes.

    "All your time traveling and heroism isn't the point," she told him, her voice wavering as her face contorted with emotion. "The point is that you were gone. You disappeared. And then they were saying you'd died in that Odessa explosion, and I didn't want to believe it, but what choice did I have when a whole year passed and you didn't come back? I know we've never been as close as we could have--as we should have--but for fuck's sake, Hiro, you're my brother! It's not just Ando whose missed you, because believe it or not, Ando isn't the only person in the world."

    "I never said he was," Hiro interjected, but Kimiko cut him off.

    " _I've_ missed you," she said, all the anger in her voice evaporating as her face lifted into a teary smile. "I really missed you, Hiro, and it's so good to have you back."

    "Oh," was all Hiro could say. Her words hit him in a way he hadn't expected, like a sudden blow from behind, and he suddenly found tears springing up in his eyes. "R-really?"

    "Of course," she said, reaching forward to lay a hand on his shoulder. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug.

    Trying to blink back his tears as they were pressed against the fabric of his sister's top, Hiro broke into a grin. He returned the embrace with a firm squeeze, and when they pulled apart after a few moments, she was grinning too. It was an expression he wasn't used to seeing on her, at least not in the context of him, and it made him feel as though a new day were finally breaking after a long and stormy night.

    Outside the car, the vehicles behind them blared out their frustrations at them not moving. Kimiko glanced at them in the rearview with a faint chuckle as she readjusted her position and put her hands back on the wheel.

    "Looks like someone doesn't know how to appreciate an emotional sibling bonding moment," Hiro remarked as the other cars continued to honk at them. "Terribly rude of them, honestly."

    "Just the worst," Kimiko agreed, still smiling as she shifted the car back into acceleration.

    As they resumed their driving, Hiro realized that he was still holding the skewer of octopus balls. Raising his eyebrows as he glanced down at the stick of rubbery fried seafood, he considered taking another bite, but instead decided to discreetly set the skewer down atop the dashboard. Hopefully Kimiko wouldn't notice (although she probably would) and if she did notice, she wouldn't mind (although, again, she probably would). Then he went back to looking out the window, and his thoughts drifted back toward his husband. It didn't look like they were close to Ando's apartment yet, and with every minute that they weren't there yet, the worry stirring in Hiro's gut grew stronger. If Kimiko, who he had always had a fairly distant relationship with, had been moved to tears by her emotions about him being gone and now coming back…

    Her words about Ando's state of mind rang in his head, and Hiro recalled the future version of himself who he was currently dressed as (he was hoping to change out of the garb as soon as possible, but Kimiko didn't have a change of clothes on hand, so he'd just have to be dressed like an edgy cosplayer until they reached the apartment). He also remembered Kimiko saying something about Ando putting on a "vigilante act", and he remembered watching from a distance as a bolt of red lightning struck a version of himself dead, and suddenly Hiro's gut clenched as his worry grew tenfold. What if… no, surely Kimiko would have mentioned it if that were the case, but… what if Ando had turned evil in Hiro's absence?

    Swallowing back the sudden panic rising within him, Hiro tapped Kimiko on the shoulder.

    "Onee-san, can you drive any faster?" he asked.

    "Not as long as the traffic is like this," she said with a gesture about the vehicles piled around them. "Why do you ask?"

     Hiro's hands balled into fists at his sides as he replied, "We've gotta get to his apartment fast."

* * *

    Tracy briefly woke up a few more times throughout the day, attaining varying degrees of lucidity and usually passing out again before long. All the while, Micah kept a close watch on her, checking every few minutes to see if her fever went down (he couldn't really tell because he didn't have a thermometer on hand, but it didn't seem to be improving at all) and to make sure she was still breathing. The whole thing was the most nerve-wracking ordeal Micah had gone through since the time the government had tried to hunt down and apprehend all the people with powers. Actually, he reflected as he paced back and forth by his aunt's bedside, this may have been even _more_ nerve-wracking, because at least with the secret government plot to hunt down superpowered people he had been able to _do_ something about it. Sending people anonymous messages to warn them wasn't much, but it was something, and it was a lot more helpful than the cold cloth he kept dampening and ringing out and reapplying to Tracy's forehead. He regretted telling Miko to go back to work, because her presence probably would have soothed the anxiety gnawing at his gut, but she was probably hard at work by now and he didn't want to bother her.

    At least there was still a glimmer of hope, though, and it strengthened every time Tracy briefly regained consciousness--not because she was getting stronger each time, because she really didn't seem to be, but because piece by piece she was giving Micah the information he could use to save her.

    "Oh, you're still here," she said when she woke up the second time. "Huh."

    "Where else would I be?" Micah asked, trying to hide his relief that her eyes, albeit clouded with fever and confusion, were open once again. "This _is_ my hotel room."

    She just sort of looked at him for a moment, or at least he assumed she was looking at him since her head was tilted in his direction. After a couple moments, Micah remembered the plan he had come up with and he gulped, swallowing back the _"how are you feeling?"_ from the tip of his tongue and replacing it with a question that would be more helpful in the long run.

    "You said that you were with Peter," he began. "Where was that?"

    Tracy didn't respond right away, and Micah's shoulders sagged in disappointment, thinking she had slipped back into unconsciousness already. However, she slowly blinked, then coughed and wiped some purple gunk away from her lips. With a pang of distress at seeing the consistency and texture of the stuff she was coughing up, Micah grabbed a tissue off the bedside table and offered it to her. Once she had dabbed away the gunk, she seemed a little more focused; her gaze was sharper as she turned it to him.

    "We were in Canada," she said. "Ontario, I believe. In a forest by a lake."

    From what little he knew about Canadian geography, that description didn't give him much to go on.

    "What forest?" he pressed. "What lake? Were there any cities or towns nearby?"

    "Oh, yes, that's right… we went to Thunder Bay," she said. "That's not where we were, though. We were, uh… we were…"

    She trailed off, beginning to say something else, but it came out too quietly for Micah to make it out. Her head sagged back down onto her pillow, and her eyes fluttered closed.

    The third time she awoke, over an hour later, she drew in a ragged gasp as her eyes snapped open. Micah, who had been beginning to fall asleep himself as he sat beside her in silence for so many minutes, jerked back to attention as she tried to sit up and promptly broke into a coughing fit. More of the purple stuff fell out of her mouth, and before the tissues could reach it, a good portion splotched onto the bedsheets. Micah winced as he watched the awful violet sludge dribble down his aunt's chin and onto the front of her shirt, which was still stained a deep red from whatever blood must have spilled onto it earlier.

    "Hey, hey, it's alright," he stammered, laying a hand on her back to steady her. His other hand shook as he brought it up to wipe away the sludge from her face. "Aunt Tracy, can you hear me? Hang in there, okay?"

    As her coughing fit subsided, she let out a pained wheeze and flopped back down, face contorted and glistening with sweat. Micah's heart twisted with sympathy and concern as he cleaned her up and readjusted her cold cloth. She blinked gratefully up at him, then closed her eyes and didn't open them again for several minutes.

    When she did reopen her eyes, she seemed to remember where they had last left off, because the first thing she said was "Lake Ghiacciato."

    "Lake Ghiacciato?" Micah echoed, his brow furrowing. "Where's that?"

    "It's in Canada," Tracy said, her words slurring together slightly. "Duh."

    "Yeah, I got that, but is it near any cities that you know of?"

    "Mmn… nope." She leaned her head back, her eyes flicking back and forth as though she were studying the pattern on the ceiling (it was one of those ceilings where the paint had a physical patterned texture to it--yet another thing about the hotel's aesthetics that Micah wasn't crazy about). "Just a big old lake that they threw me in when they were done with me."

    "Okay…" Micah took a deep breath, trying to calm his insecurities. Her condition may not have been improving, but it didn't seem to be worsening either, he reminded himself. He still had plenty of time to get the information he needed to save her. Probably. Hopefully. "And did Peter say how close his current residence was to that lake, or if he even has a current residence, or…?"

    "It's a real shitty thing to do, if you ask me," Tracy carried on, as though Micah's question hadn't even registered. "Sure, I was lying to 'em and all, but they didn't have to go and stick a knife in me. Ughh."

    With that, she coughed again--this time without spitting up any venom--groaned, and passed out.

    The next time she regained consciousness, Micah was over at the sink, running a fresh cloth under the water (he deposited the one he'd been using into the dirty laundry pile in the corner of the room, deciding it had seen one too many rounds of venom-infused sweat). He didn't realize she had woken up until he shut the tap off, wrung the cloth out, and walked back over to see her staring at him with a refreshingly alert gaze. He smiled, both out of relief and in an attempt to lift her spirits, as he sat back down next to her and laid the cloth across her forehead.

     "You seem a bit better," he said, as if he had any way of knowing what state she was in when his medical knowledge began and ended with Dr. Mario. "How do you feel?"

    "If I look like I'm doing better, looks must be deceiving," she said with a weak chuckle. "…But at least I'm not hacking up any toxic sludge right at the moment."

    "That… that's a plus, yeah," Micah agreed. His smile wavered as he found that he couldn't share his aunt's capacity to make light of her situation. "How exactly did you get poisoned, anyway? You passed out before you could explain it to me."

    "Oh, that? That was at the hospital," she explained. "Peter took me there to give me a transfusion, but when we got there, a clone of me with poisonous… nails? Claws? Whatever you'd call them, she was wreaking havoc at the hospital. I fought her, got rid of her, but not before she could bury those claws into me and pump her venom into my system."

    The nonchalance with which she recounted the events was remarkable, but Micah could tell that it was put on. There was a faint tremor to her voice as she spoke, and her wry smile gave way to a grimace.

    "So, when we were talking earlier you seemed a little out of it," he said. "Could you repeat the name of the lake you were, um, in? And maybe spell it out for me so I can look it up?"

    "Oh, sure. Lake Ghiacciato," she said. "That's G-H-I-A-C-C-I-A-T-O. Some foreign word, I think--Italian or something."

    "Alright," Micah said. He picked his phone up from where it lay facedown on the bedside table next to the tissue box, opened an internet tab, and typed the name into the search bar. "And did Peter give any indication that he was staying in the area?"

    When he looked up from his phone, however, he discovered that Tracy had already lapsed back into unconsciousness. Even so, not one to be discouraged so easily, Micah scrolled through the results of his search. It looked like there was a small lake in Ontario with that name, located in the same general region as Thunder Bay. Upon checking it out on google maps, he discerned that it was part of a campground in a forest a few miles outside the small town of Atikokan. The forest itself spanned about two hundred acres, and apart from the campground, there didn't seem to be much else going on there. In fact, it was just out of the way enough to be inconspicuous if, say, somebody wanted to go off the grid and hide away from the outside world…

    "Thanks for the tip, Aunt Tracy," he said even though he knew she couldn't hear him. "I'll get you looked after in no time."

    Now he just had to figure out how he was going to send his message.

* * *

    The tension in the living room was palpable as Anne paced back and forth, phone in hand and waiting for Noah to call her back. Tommy sat on the couch with his knees drawn up to his chest, occasionally glancing around and squirming slightly; the man he had come to the house with--Ando--was also pacing over in the kitchen. None of them spoke to each other, and although Anne kept catching Tommy staring at her, he hastily looked away every time she tried to return his gaze.

    Anne was still having a hard time wrapping her mind around the whole situation. Immediately after Tommy had told her about his missing memory, she had sat him down and inspected his head for signs of a concussion, but he seemed to be perfectly fine on a physical level. If he had sustained a blow to the head, any outward blemishes must have completely healed already--which was believable enough, since he said that the memories he did have reached back a few weeks. From there she had intended to bring him in to the hospital, which she still planned to do sooner rather than later, but before that she had remembered a strange phone call she had gotten from Noah the previous week. He had asked first if Tommy was currently with her, and then whether he had contacted her over the course of the past few days (she hadn't, but she didn't think much of it at the time--he was an independent young man now, after all, and there wasn't any reason to worry about him that she was aware of). When she had asked why he wanted to know, he had said there was no particular reason and quickly ended the call. At the time, it had struck her as somewhat odd and possibly a cause for worry, but she'd had other things to devote her attention to and it had quickly slipped her mind. Now, as she marched back and forth across the living room floor with anxiety stirring in her chest, she wished he had just told her why he was worried in the first place. If she had known there was a chance Tommy was in danger, she would have tried to figure out where he was and help him herself--or at least she might have been able to help Noah find him--and maybe then he wouldn't have ended up the way he was now.

    Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the silence was broken by the beginning of Anne's ringtone. Letting out a sigh of relieved tension, she raised her phone to her ear and answered the call.

    "Hello, Mr. Bennet. Did you get my message?"

    "Yes, that's why I'm calling you." There was an edge to Noah's voice; Anne frowned but didn't call him out on it. Clearly he was just as worried about Tommy as she was, so of course he would be a little wound up. "Tell me, is he still with you?"

    "Yes, he's right here," she said, nodding toward where Tommy sat on the couch although Noah obviously couldn't see her over the phone. "Would you like to talk to him?"

    "In a minute," he said. "First… is Tommy safe?"

    There was a tremendous weight to his words that made Anne's gut churn. She suddenly appreciated how well he had masked his anxiety when he had called her the week before. Because, as she realized now, Tommy must have been missing for a while now. And whatever had tipped Noah off to this fact… Tommy's fate must have been a complete mystery to him up until now.

    "Yes," she told him. "As I said in my message, he's lost most of his memory, and he seems very nervous, but he's uninjured."

    Noah hesitated for a moment before speaking. His voice was level, but the relief in it was loud and clear when he said,

    "I'd like to talk with him now, if you don't mind."

    "Of course." Holding the phone away from herself for a moment, Anne turned to address Tommy. "Mr. Bennet wants to talk to you. Is that okay?"

    "Bennet…" Tommy echoed, his brow furrowing. "That's a familiar name. Who is that?"

     "He's… well, he's sort of your grandfather, in a way."

    "Okay, then," he said, standing up and reaching to take the phone. "I'll talk to him."

    Anne gave him an encouraging smile as she handed him the phone, and he smiled back at her, but it was a nervous smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. She stepped back and watched him speak into the phone with a faint tremble of hesitation in his tone.

    "Hello?"

    Noah responded with something she couldn't make out, and Tommy nodded.

    "Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry. Well… sort of fine, anyway," he added. "My head still feels like it's full of static whenever I try to think about my past."

    Although the call volume was still too low for Anne to hear what Noah said, it sounded like he was asking a question this time. She considered asking Tommy to turn the volume up, but decided that might be too invasive. Besides, Tommy's answers gave her all the information she needed.

    "Yeah, no, it feels more like… I've definitely got memories, but I can't quite access them. It's like somebody painted over them with poor imitations of fake memories--well, I say 'somebody', but I actually do know who did it."

…

    "Huh? No, definitely not. Actually, it was a white guy and an Asian woman. The guy's name was Bruce and he had sort of an Irish accent? And the woman's name was Ji Woo. She was pretty mean--I mean, they both were--but in a way, Bruce was kind of scarier."

…

    "Um, a couple of weeks? Keeping track of time was kind of hard, since I was in a closet for most of it, but--"

…

    "Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that, didn't I? Bruce scrambled my mind to make me think he and Ji Woo were my parents, but he didn't do a very good job and I guess he knew it, because they made sure to hold me hostage there as well."

…

    "…You know, that's actually a great question. I guess I sort of forgot I could teleport? I mean, not _forgot_ -forgot, but it somehow never occurred to me. I guess Bruce's mental manipulation was kinda effective after all."

…

    "Not physically, but Bruce probably would have if I'd kept acting out."

…

    "Um… a few things, here and there? Now that I'm talking to you, I guess your voice is pretty familiar. And this whole house feels familiar too, and Anne… but I'm still not really remembering specific things."

…

    "Oh yeah, that reminds me! Anne mentioned that I have a sister. What's she like?"

    There was a much longer pause this time, and it didn't sound like Noah was talking for all of it--like he was searching for words. Tommy nodded along, occasionally interjecting with an "Oh, cool!" or a "Really? Wow!" When Noah finished speaking, he was grinning; the sight made Anne's heart swell with a profound relief. Even after having his mind meddled with so invasively, the sweet and cheerful boy she had raised was still in there.

    "It's been great talking to you, Mr. Bennet," Tommy said. "Bye for now!"

* * *

    Night fell fast and harsh when the winter season grew near, and as the sky above gradually darkened into twilight, Mohinder found that the dwindling campfire was insufficient to keep him warm. He tried to suppress a shiver when a cool wind swept through the campsite, but Matt must have noticed, because he stood up and headed over to the trailer.

    "Matthew, what are you doing?"

    "Getting you something warmer to wear," he replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. He stood in the door to the trailer, glancing back at Mohinder over his shoulder. "I know my clothes will be kinda baggy on you, but when I found you on the side of the road I didn't really have time to gather any of your luggage."

    "Oh." Looking down at the clothes he was wearing now, Mohinder realized that they unmistakably belonged to Matt. Although that much should have been obvious, the thought that he was effectively borrowing Matt's clothes made a prickle of heat seep into his skin. "A-Alright."

    Matt began to step inside the trailer, then paused again.

    "Uh, I guess you should probably pick out clothes and change into them yourself," he said. "Don't want to, um, make decisions for you."

    "…Right, of course," Mohinder said. "I'll just be a minute, then."

    Pointedly ignoring the way his heartbeat picked up, he walked over and entered the trailer. Now that he got a better look at it and had noticed Matt's car, he could tell it was a tent trailer, so its average size was a little more impressive. There was a backpack propped up against the side of the bed with its zipper half open, showing that there was an assortment of clothing stored inside. When Mohinder knelt down and unzipped the bag the rest of the way, he quickly found that all the clothes were more or less jumbled together without any real organization. Although this discovery brought him a brief twinge of annoyance, it was nothing new. Back when he and Matt had lived together, Matt had been terrible at organizing things properly. Keeping things clean and tidy, that much was fine, but the places where he put away things like laundry and kitchenware after cleaning them… there was no rhyme or reason to it. It was a good thing their apartment was so small, or else Mohinder never would have been able to find anything…

    Screwing his eyes shut against the mental images, Mohinder shook his head to banish those thoughts. Even now that Matt was (by some miracle, if such things existed) back in his life, those days were still long gone. Especially with Molly being… no longer in the picture… there was no going back, so there was no sense in pining for the past.

    After a bit of searching, Mohinder pulled a bulky tan sweater and a pair of blue-gray sweatpants from the backpack. Once he had put them on and come back outside, the sky had gone almost completely dark, with the only sources of illumination being the nearly-full moon and the campfire, which was blazing more strongly again--Matt must have added some more wood.

    "The sun sure goes down quickly this time of year, huh?" Matt said as Mohinder sat back down across from him. His beer was still tucked into the cupholder pouch in his chair, although it was probably empty by now after he had periodically sipped at it over the course of the past hour or so. "It's getting colder, too."

    "Yes, well, that's the autumnal season for you," Mohinder replied.

    Unsure of what else could be said, he cast his gaze to the fire, watching it flicker and dance against the backdrop of darkness. He could understand why poets devoted so many flowery words to that particular chemical reaction, comparing it to the emotion of love and so on. Not a perfect metaphor by any means, he thought, but fitting enough: it was warm, it was sustaining, but it could also be painful. The really fantastic thing was how it could dwindle down to embers over time, only to be reignited all at once and come back stronger than ever.

    "Hey, Mohinder?"

    Matt's voice was so soft that Mohinder barely heard it at first. When he looked up to meet Matt's gaze, he was startled by its intensity. The dance of the firelight was reflected in his eyes as he stared at Mohinder; the sight made his gut twist with an emotion he couldn't quite identify.

    "What is it, Matthew?" he whispered, some part of him knowing what Matt wanted to say but telling himself that there was no chance, and not even being sure if he wanted to hear him say it.

    "I…" Matt hesitated, holding Mohinder's gaze for a long moment before glancing down at the fire. "I'm glad that I found you."

    A wave of something like relief or disappointment or both washed over Mohinder, and he gave Matt an amicable smile, ignoring the way that the rhythm of his heart seemed to increase. Whatever had transpired between them in the past, however sourly things had ended, none of it seemed all that important anymore. Matt was here now, apparently having redeemed himself, and his presence gave Mohinder the same strange rush of giddy warmth that it had when they had first known each other. They couldn’t return to the past, but would it really be so self-indulgent to think that perhaps they could build something new beginning now?

    "I'm glad too," he said. "And it's wonderful to see you again."

    They sat in silence for a few minutes more, listening to the crackle and hiss of the fire, until something else occurred to Mohinder and he spoke up again.

    "If you don't mind my asking, why is it that your trailer has a bunk bed?"

    "Oh, that," Matt chuckled. "Janice and I bought it… eh, about twelve or thirteen years ago? And we never used it, so it's still in good condition. I guess I should've taken her wanting a bunk bed as a sign," he added, "that our marriage wasn't in the best condition."

    "Indeed," Mohinder agreed, doing his best to suppress any twinges of jealousy that the mention of Matt's marriage may have stirred. "Which reminds me… I know you said you haven't seen your family since your near-death experience four years ago, but have you been in any other relationships since then?"

    "I mean, what do you think?" Matt asked. "No, of course not. I've just been on the road here and there, trying not to stick around anywhere for too long. Besides, I don't know that a new relationship would be the best thing for me right now."

    "Oh? Why's that?" Mohinder asked, resisting the urge to lean forward in interest but unable to keep his eyebrows from rocketing up.

    Matt shrugged, keeping his gaze fixed on the campfire as he poked at it with a stick. "Well, y'know," he mumbled. "I've just… I've had other things on my mind."

    "Ah, yes, naturally," Mohinder said, perhaps a bit too quickly. He folded his hands in his lap and cleared his throat, trying to think of a way to steer the conversation away from the direction it had taken. "So, where do you plan to go next?"

    Another shrug, although Matt's shoulders seemed a bit less tense following the change in topic. Not that Mohinder was paying close attention to such things, observing the faint outline of Matt's body against the darkness, the way the light of the fire danced across him and cast shadows on the peaks and valleys of his familiar features… The rising warmth within Mohinder grew to the point of discomfort, and he gulped, looking away before his heart could get the better of him.

    "I mean, is there anywhere _you_ want to go?" Matt asked. "I can't promise you'll be able to get your car back--leave a perfectly good car sitting on the edge of the road, some asshole might come along and nab it for themself--so you might be stuck with me for the time being."

    "Ah… yes, naturally," Mohinder mumbled. The intense prickle of heat grew more powerful, and it seeped from inside him out into his skin. "Well, I don't have any particular destination in mind, but--"

    Halfway through saying that, he remembered with a jolt how he had gotten injured to begin with. Immediately he broke off, internally berating himself. Had he really gotten so caught up in blushing over Matt like some ridiculous schoolboy that he had let his concern for his young friend slip his mind?

    "Actually, er, there is a matter I have to attend to," he said. "I mentioned earlier that I had been traveling with a resurrected Claire Bennet, and I believe I told you that we became separated after being attacked, but I failed to mention how our separation transpired."

    He paused, grimacing as he recalled seeing their attacker charge towards her, ready to strike. He still had no idea who that young man was--Claire had seemed to recognize him, but Mohinder certainly hadn't--or why he had attacked them, but he had clearly been willing to kill at least Mohinder. Although he had passed out and been unable to see how the confrontation ended, he had to assume from context that Claire had left the scene of the ambush in their attacker's car, more than likely against her will.

    "I fear that Claire had been kidnapped," he explained. "I don't know why or by who, or what they intend to do with her, but I don't intend to let them get away with it. Claire's family still doesn't know she's alive again, so it's up to us to rescue her."

    "Up to _me_ , you mean," Matt interjected, fixing Mohinder's bandaged arm with a meaningful glare. "You're in no condition to go all action hero after getting shot just a few days ago."

    "Maybe so, but regardless, I am… stuck with you, as you say," Mohinder said, a slight smile playing around his lips as he held Matt's gaze. "And need I remind you that I do have enhanced strength and agility?"

    "Believe me, Momo, I would never forget you deciding to mess around with your DNA just for kicks. That doesn't change the fact that your arm needs at least another week or so to heal."

    Though he blushed at the nickname, Mohinder couldn't help feeling that Matt's voice was just a touch too forceful--like it was backed up by fear. He realized with a twang of nostalgic gratitude that Matt was deeply concerned for his wellbeing--not as an officer defending a citizen (not that officers tended to be particularly good at that job in the first place) but as someone caring for a close and personal friend. With a soft smile, Mohinder reached out with his uninjured arm and laid his hand atop Matt's.

    "Matthew, I promise I'll look after myself," he told him. "Just make sure you can promise me the same, because…"

     _Because I couldn't bear to lose you all over again_ , he thought but couldn't bring himself to say. Matt nodded, though, in a way that said he understood. And really, when the night sky and the campfire were their only witnesses, words didn't seem to matter so much anyway. And so, without saying so much, it was settled: in the morning, they would go back to the scene of the ambush, figure out which way the attacker had gone, and pursue him. In the meantime, they needed some rest and had a lot more catching up to do.

* * *

    Once they had finally slogged across town through all the traffic and made it to Ando's apartment complex, Hiro was out the car and slamming the door behind him to race across the parking lot before Kimiko had even unbuckled her seatbelt. "Hey, slow down there, Mr. The Flash!" she called to him as she stepped out after him (although she wouldn't have admitted it, she was pretty proud of herself for managing to make a comic book reference, but Hiro was already too far out of earshot to appreciate it). Sighing and shaking her head, she followed her brother into the apartment complex and up the stairs to the floor Ando lived on. Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she was climbing the stairs. She paused to check and see if it was anything important; it was a text from Ji Woo, apologizing for unintentionally stealing Kimiko's suit jacket. Kimiko fired back a message saying it was fine and she could give it back the next time they met up. Honestly, she had gotten so caught up in everything with Hiro that her suit jacket had been the last thing on her mind; had her girlfriend not brought it up, it might have taken her days to notice it was gone.

    She caught up with Hiro just as they both reached Ando's floor. He had come to a stop just past the landing and was staring down the hallway; as Kimiko approached him, he took a step backward, letting out what sounded like a whimper. Just before Kimiko could ask what the problem was, her gaze landed on the same thing Hiro was staring at: bright yellow police tape marking off the door to Ando's apartment. The door itself was ajar, but not wide enough for her to see what was happening inside. Outside, an officer was speaking with an older man who Kimiko vaguely recognized as living a couple doors down the hall from Ando. They were talking in hushed, serious tones, with the officer periodically scribbling something down in a notepad.

    Trying to ignore the sudden knot of dread in her gut, Kimiko stepped forward, clearing her throat to get the officer's attention. She cast a glance behind her to see if Hiro would follow, but he hung back, eyes wide with terrified apprehension.

    "Excuse me," she addressed the officer. "What… er, did something happen here?"

    "Yes, I'm afraid so," he replied. "A murder, it appears. I've got a couple other officers in there investigating it right now."

     _What?!_ Heart seizing, Kimiko looked again at the police tape surrounding the door. A murder? That--no, that couldn't be right. How could… why would…?

    "Do either of you two know the owner of this apartment?" the officer inquired.

    "Yes, I, er… he's my brother-in-law."

    "I see," he said. Then, nodding toward Hiro: "And what's your relation to him?"

    At that, Hiro seemed to slip out of his wide-eyed panicked trance. Clearing his throat, he started raising his hand toward his face as thought to adjust a pair of glasses he wasn't currently wearing, then stopped, blinking in awkward realization, and folded his hands behind his back.

    "He's my husband," he said rather curtly. "So if anything happened to him, stop being vague and dramatic about it and tell me right now!"

    The officer frowned, shrugging. "I don't know what happened to your… husband," he said, grimacing a bit at the last word as though he were biting into a lemon. "But we think he might be the perp. You two can go in and see for yourselves if you like."

    "Oh," was all Kimiko could say. For a moment she was almost relieved, but any relief was quickly swept away by a rush of horror. "You… you think so?"

    "Oh, no…" Hiro muttered. "This is what I was afraid of!"

    Without giving any clarification of why he had thought to be afraid of such a thing (Kimiko would probably never understand the way her brother's brain operated) he ducked under the police tape and entered the apartment. Kimiko quickly followed behind, although she stepped over the tape rather than going under it.

     The first thing her gaze landed on upon stepping into the apartment was, appropriately enough, the body on the floor at the base of the far wall. It was covered up with a sheet, but just from the general size and shape of it, Kimiko would have been able to tell at once even without the officer's clarification that it wasn't Ando. Another officer was kneeling over the body with their back to the door; it looked like they were putting an object into a bag. Meanwhile, a third officer was investigating the wall and floor. The two officers glanced up at Kimiko and Hiro with mild surprise as they entered. Swallowing back her apprehension for the second time in as many minutes, Kimiko approached the officer who was looking over the body.

    "My brother here is married to your prime suspect," she began, gesturing towards Hiro, whose anxious gaze flitted between the body and a faint but sizable smudge of soot on the wall. "So if you don't mind, could we take a look at the body to see if it's anyone we recognize?"

    Nodding, the officer pulled the sheet back to reveal the corpse's face. It was an older man with pale pinkish skin, long gray-brown hair with a receding hairline, and a beard. Kimiko's brow furrowed as she examined the utterly unfamiliar face. Who on earth was this man, and how had he ended up dead in her brother-in-law's apartment?

    "Pull the sheet back further," Hiro urged. "I want to see the fatal wound."

    Kimiko glanced at her brother incredulously, raising her eyebrows.

    "Come now," she said, "Surely you don't think Ando _actually_ \--"

    She broke off as the officer tugged the sheet further off the body, revealing a harsh black singe mark on its torso. Technically, a lot of things could have left such a mark, Kimiko reasoned--but given the circumstances, it seemed exceedingly likely that a lightning attack was to blame. Red lightning with supercharging properties, to be more specific.

    "Do you know this man, Ma'am?" the officer asked.

    "No, not at all. Do you?" she asked Hiro; he shook his head, frowning.

    Just then, her phone buzzed again. A quick glance revealed that it was another text from Ji Woo. Although given the circumstances she was inclined to ignore the text for now, something in her subconscious urged her not to brush it off. She stood up and turned away from the body to be discreet before opening up the messaging app and reading the text.

     _Actually I'd prefer if we met up & I gave you back your jacket now bc SOMEONE had the bright idea to take off without telling me & lock me out of our apartment (THANKS, O'BRIEN!!! >:/) so I don't really have anywhere else to go atm anyway _

    Kimiko hesitated, worrying her thumb against the surface of her phone. After thinking it over for a moment, she typed:

     _Sorry, Ji-chan, I'm busy with something really important right now. Sorry to hear that your coworker is being a jerk, though._

    A few seconds later, Ji Woo replied:

     _Oh yeah? Well you did just reunite with your long-lost brother so… yeah I get it_

    Kimiko began typing out a message: _Actually, it's a little more complicated. I'll tell you about it later, maybe._ Then she paused, biting her lip, and glanced back over at the body. Hiro was talking with the officers, asking them if they had found any "clues", as if that meant anything important when the victim had a burn mark on his chest and had been found in the apartment of a man who could shoot beams of lightning. She deleted the unsent message and, driven by the unexpectedly powerful urge not to keep her girlfriend in the dark, typed out and sent a different message instead.

     _We're at my brother-in-law's apartment. Someone's been murdered here and it looks like he's responsible. It doesn't seem like him at all, and neither Hiro or I know the victim, but the evidence doesn't lie._

    Almost immediately, Ji Woo sent back:

     _Describe the body_

    Brow furrowing, Kimiko glanced back at the body. It was still uncovered, showing off both its grisly burn mark and its unfamiliar face.

     _White man, middle-aged, stocky build w beer gut, medium-long hair, beard. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt._

    She waited a few seconds for her girlfriend's response, but this time she didn't get one. Once a full minute had passed and no response came, Kimiko assumed that Ji Woo had gotten busy doing something and abandoned the conversation. Just in case, though, she sent one last text, also to be met with silence:

     _Why do you ask?_

* * *

    The hotel Malina and Molly were staying at stopped serving breakfast at ten o'clock, but there was a vending machine in the lobby that carried bags of dried mango slices in addition to the typical chip bags and candy bars. Although the dried mangoes went for $4.50 per bag, Malina decided it would be worth it to get a bit of proper sustenance.

    When she walked back into their hotel room and dropped the bag onto the bed, Molly flinched. She was still sitting cross-legged on the bed, hunched over slightly and facing away from Malina. She'd been in that position all morning, having stopped outwardly crying after a few minutes but without any visible decrease in her misery and despair. Malina's heart ached with sympathy, but as much as she wanted to help, she didn't see how she could. For now, she figured that the best thing she could do for Molly was to look after her.

    Malina sat down on the bed next to Molly with her legs tucked up beneath her, positioned perpendicular to her companion. She reached for the bag of dried mango slices, only to be hit with a pang of pleasant surprise as she felt Molly's hand brush against her own atop the bag. Molly hastily retracted her hand and shot Malina an apologetic glance.

    "Sorry," she mumbled, her voice scratchy from her earlier bout of crying. "Since you dropped it on the bed, I thought maybe they were for me."

    "They're for both of us," Malina told her. To demonstrate, she picked up the bag and tore it open at the top, then took out one piece for herself and one for Molly. "Call it breakfast, if you will."

    The faintest hint of a smile ghosted across Molly's face as she took her mango slice and bit down on it. She closed her eyes as she chewed, and once she swallowed, she immediately went in for another bite--and once the rest of the slice was in her mouth, she reached into the bag and grabbed three more pieces.

    "Woah," Malina chuckled, raising her eyebrows. "Save some for me, why don't you!"

    Despite her teasing words, she couldn't stop herself from grinning as she watched her companion eat. Upon taking a bite of one of the mango slices, Malina found them to be a bit too chewy and not flavourful enough for her taste; Molly must have been pretty hungry to be wolfing them down like that. Malina set a couple more slices aside for herself, because she did need to eat something even if it wasn't her favourite, and then pushed the open bag toward Molly, signaling that the rest was hers.

    Later, while they were trying to pick out outfits, Molly once again caught Malina by surprise when she spoke up, sounding much less timid this time.

    "I think I remember a few more things."

    "Really? That's great!" Malina glanced over at her companion, who was currently looking down at their open suitcase to choose an ensemble.

    (Molly hadn't had any belongings with her when she'd woken up, she had explained during their first couple days together, but Sandra Bennet had bought a bunch of new clothes for her when she was staying under her roof. Although she had left most of the new clothes behind, she had brought a few along with her when she left. Additionally, Malina had made it clear that she was fine with Molly borrowing clothes from her so long as she gave them back.)

    "Actually, I don't really like what I've remembered," Molly said. "More than anything, I remember being afraid. At one point I was hiding, and somebody was out to get me… and then I remember nightmares, and having to leave behind the only people who ever made me feel safe."

    "But you don't remember any details, do you?"

    "No."

    She sounded almost apologetic as she said that. Frowning, Malina laid a hand on Molly's shoulder; her frown deepened when her companion shrank away from her touch.

    "Listen, Noah seems to know a good deal about your past," she said. "He said he was going to rendezvous with us, so when he comes here, we can ask him to help you find some family or friends of yours."

    "I guess so," Molly murmured, but her gaze was downcast and she didn't really sound like she believed herself. Then, as though looking for any excuse to change the topic, she pulled a graphic tee out of the suitcase and held it up for Malina to see. "What do you think of this shirt? Would it look good on me?"

    Malina hummed and tapped her chin in mock deep thought. The shirt in question was light gray and had a picture of Detective Pikachu on the front, with a coffee cup in his furry little paw. It was one of Malina's shirts, although she had never really worn it herself--and now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember exactly how it had come into her possession to begin with--but she had to assume it would look good on Molly.

    "I think it'd be a great fit," she told her, and the way Molly smiled at that brought her an unexpectedly powerful swell of joy.

    Once they were both dressed, it seemed that the only thing left to do was wait around for Noah to arrive. Since their trip was more for business (such as it was) than pleasure, they hadn't brought much to pass the time with other than Malina's phone. The hotel didn't have internet connection, either, and a girl could only play that block-arranging phone game for so long before getting to the point where she would rather be watching paint dry. As such, Malina's thoughts inevitably drifted back toward their purpose for going on their trip in the first place. It wasn't that she _wanted_ to go against Noah's wishes, but…

    "So, Noah said we should stay put until he gets here," Malina said as she paced around near the foot of the bed, where Molly sat kicking her feet back and forth. "But he might take a while to get here still, and depending on if Claire is nearby, maybe we could go meet up with her and get back here before Noah even knows we're gone?"

    Glancing up from the mobile game she was playing, Molly set Malina's phone facedown on the bed and met her gaze. "You want me to look for her again?"

    "Yeah, if you don't mind," Malina said with a nod.

    "Alright," Molly agreed. "If that's what you want."

    She hopped off the bed and retrieved the folded-up map from the dresser, along with her little box of coloured pins. Then, pushing a few things aside to make room, she laid the map out flatly atop the dresser, took a pin out from the box, and held it over the map, ready to mark a place. Malina watched with interest, peering over Molly’s shoulder as she gradually lowered the pin toward a certain point on the map--a small seaside town, marked by only the tiniest dot on the map, just a couple inches away from the significantly larger dot that represented LA and less than a half-inch away from the equally tiny dot representing the town they were currently staying in. Malina waited with bated breath to see if Molly would shift the pin to a different location, but her hand didn't waver even the tiniest bit as she stuck the pin down onto the little dot.

    "I-is that really where she is?" she asked, her voice unintentionally coming out as a whisper. Then, louder and accompanied by a disbelieving laugh: "It's so close! Molly, I don't care what Noah says, we have to go there!"

    "You think so?" Molly asked, turning to face Malina with an apprehensive smile. "And, yeah, that's definitely her location," she added, tapping the head of the pin. "This time, it was a lot easier to pinpoint her; I don't think she's on the move at the moment. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's at the house where her mom lives--the one I stayed in for a while, remember?"

    "Oh, we just _have_ to go," Malina repeated, not realizing how hard she was grinning until her cheeks began to ache from it. She clasped Molly's hands, which garnered a mildly startled reaction but no move to flinch away this time. "Come on, let's get all our stuff packed up and back into the car. We're going to Costa Verde!"


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's looking as though things might turn out okay after all, but in the crucial moment, our heroes are about to make what could prove to be fatal mistakes. Noah (thinks he) puts two and two together. Peter gets the chance to undo his failure. Hiro is happy to help.

    It was a new morning, with a clear blue sky and cold crisp air. The fallen leaves and pine needles covering the forest floor bore a fresh dusting of snow, like pink icing on a cinnamon bun (Sylar's mind was still on persians following their excursion to Thunder Bay the day before). Peter was still in bed, and he had looked more peaceful than he had in weeks, so Sylar hadn't dared to disturb his sleep when getting up to feed the cat. Now, although he planned to shortly rejoin his boyfriend in bed, Sylar took a moment to gaze out the kitchen window at the results of the overnight snowfall. It was the first snowfall of the season, and was to be expected considering the way the weather had been cooling off lately. He briefly considered stepping outside to see how cold it was, but decided against it when he noticed the touch of frost on the windowsill. He did, however, make a mental note to build a thermostat; he'd have to pick up the supplies for such a thing the next time they went into town.

    Rolex brushed up against him with a meow, rubbing her face against his leg. Smiling, Sylar knelt down and stroked her silky black fur. The injury she had sustained the other week was almost completely healed now, and the cone the vet had given her had already been deemed ready to come off. Were it not for a shaved patch of fur the vet had stitched up her wound, you wouldn’t know anything bad had ever happened to the chipper-as-ever cat. It seemed almost too good to be true that, after all the drama and turmoil of the past few weeks, things had settled back into their usual routine. And yet, judging by how the morning had gone thus far, things had done just that.

    "Yes, you're a lovely girl," he cooed to Rolex, scooping her up in his arms to hold her like a baby. "A very pretty kitty, mm-hmm."

    With one final glance at the landscape outside the window, he turned to head back into the bedroom. Before he could leave the kitchen, however, the unexpected crackle of the portable stereo caught his attention.

    At first it was just that--a crackle. Then, as though the radio had somehow magically turned itself on, the static gave way to a voice. Arching an eyebrow, Sylar walked over to where the stereo sat on the countertop and adjusted its antenna to see if that would clear the signal up. It didn't seem to, but even so, when he listened carefully enough he found that he could make out what the transmission was saying.

_ "Mr. Petrelli, if you're hearing this, please come to the Togenkyo Hotel in Tokyo as soon as you can. Tracy is here with me, alive but really sick. She needs your help. I repeat, Tracy is alive, but she's badly poisoned and needs a transfusion of your blood. Over." _

    "Well, well," Sylar muttered to himself. "I guess I will have to disturb Peter's sleep after all."

    The crackling continued for a moment, accompanied by the sounds of breathing; after a few seconds, the speaker repeated their message, this time with slightly different wording. Sylar didn't recognize the voice, although maybe he would have if he'd thought a little harder about it. In any case, Peter was clearly the intended recipient. He picked up the stereo and carried it into the bedroom, with Rolex trotting along at his heels.

    Peter was still in bed when Sylar walked in, although now he was beginning to stir. He rolled over to face Sylar as he entered. Rolex hopped up onto the bed and started kneading the blankets at the crook of Peter's knees.

    "Message for you, darling," Sylar said, setting the stereo down on the bedside table. "I believe it's urgent."

    "Mmn…" Peter mumbled, blinking his eyes half-open. His gaze quickly sharpened as the speaker on the stereo repeated their message once again, and he jerked upright, tossing the covers off of himself in a gesture that sent Rolex hopping off the bed with a startled meow. He stared intently at the stereo, eyes widening, and whispered something under his breath.

    "I take it you know who that is and what they're talking about?"

    "I think that's Micah Sanders," he said. "You remember him, right? The boy--well, I guess he'd be all grown up by now--who can communicate with machines?"

    "Hmm… yep, that rings a bell," Sylar said. "And isn't Tracy a clone of his dead mom or something? No wonder he would be worried about her, then."

    Peter barely seemed to register his response, though; he kept staring at the stereo, waiting for Micah to repeat his message once more--he must not have caught the whole thing when he was just waking up. When the stereo did crackle back to life once more, he held his breath as the broadcasted message played.

_ "Um, one more time: Mr. Petrelli, if you're hearing this, Tracy needs your help. Please come to the Togenkyo Hotel in Tokyo as soon as you can. We’re inroom 17. Over." _

    With that, Peter reached over and shut the stereo off, letting out an exhale that was heavy with relief. He stood up and turned to face Sylar, who arched an eyebrow in invitation for him to explain. He did recall Peter mentioning having had a run-in with Tracy during his previous ill-fated trip away from the cottage, but he never had explained the situation in full, nor had he told him whether she was involved with his impromptu visit to the Thunder Bay General Hospital--although he highly suspected she had been. He certainly hadn't been filled in about Tracy apparently getting poisoned, but considering that he had met a clone of her with poisonous claws the week before, he supposed it made sense in a very roundabout way.

    Peter, however, offered no explanation--which was fine, really, seeing as they'd done much worse to each other in the past than keeping a few secrets about their personal lives. Instead, all he said was:

    "You had better not try to stop me from going."

    "Stop you?" Sylar shook his head, reaching out to brush his fingers along the curve of Peter's firmly set jaw. "If anything, I plan to go with you. In case your blood type isn't compatible with hers, you know, you could use me as a backup."

    Peter smiled at that, raising his hand to clasp it around Sylar's and give it a gentle squeeze.

    "Thank you for offering," he said. "Of course you can come with me."

    "Although…" Sylar bit back a sly grin as he glanced up and down at Peter's current attire: a faded t-shirt with a cartoon puppy on the front and pajama pants with a heart pattern. "Maybe you should get dressed first."

    Peter looked down at himself and laughed, blushing. "Yeah, I guess so."

    As he set about stripping off his sleepwear and selecting an outfit from the dresser, Rolex headbutted Sylar's ankles with an impertinent mew. Making a  _ tsk-tsk  _ sound, he bent down and scratched her behind the ears.

    "You've already been fed, you little rascal," he told her. "Now, you be a good girl while your daddies are out, okay?"

    As if to say  _ No promises, _ Rolex nipped at his hand.

    "You're the one who kickstarted all this drama, you know," he went on as he continued petting her, ignoring her attempts to sink her tiny little fangs into his skin. "If you hadn't snuck out and started a fight with a fox, we could have just gone on with our lives as usual."

    He glanced back up at Peter, who was currently in the process of buttoning up a flannel shirt. Even as he fumbled with the buttons, as he was so lovably prone to do, he had a more invigorated look about him than he'd had in a long time--probably not since they had found Rolex in the woods as a kitten and he had wholeheartedly thrown himself into the effort of nursing her into the strong and healthy cat she was today. That vigor, that passion for saving people (and cats) made a warmth bloom in Sylar's chest--because that was what Peter did; it was what he was meant to do. So if Rolex hadn't snuck out that day, thus kicking off all the hectic events leading up to their impending trip across the globe, they might have been able to go on with their lives as usual. But at the end of the day, perhaps it was better that things turned out the way they did. Because now, for the first time in years, Peter was back in the business of being a hero.

* * *

    If those hacks who published the pamphlets you found in therapists' offices were ever running low on ideas, Ji Woo had a couple of suggestions for them.  _ So your shitty hippie coworker went behind your back and got himself killed in the process _ , for example. That'd be a good one. Or maybe  _ What to do when your coworker is dead and you're a necromancer but you're also in love with a woman you were only supposed to pretend to date so that you could kidnap her brother-in-law, whose husband was supposed to be dead but now apparently he isn't, and did I mention that you also got locked out of your apartment? _

    That last part, at least, she had been able to do something about. As non-sequitur as her interaction with those kids in the hall had been, their suggestion to ask for help at the front desk had proved to be solid advice. The manager had managed to get her a duplicate of the key, and now she was lying on the bed in the hotel room, with its stained mattress and grody sheets, face buried in the godawful lumpy pillow. That changed exactly one of the facts that had been weighing on her head. All the rest--her being in love with Kimiko, Bruce having been killed, the plan being in jeopardy because her partner was dead and Hiro fucking Nakamura was alive--none of those problems could be solved so easily. Well, two thirds of those problems  _ could  _ be solved easily enough, but the worst part was that she wasn't even sure if she wanted to solve them anymore. If Kimiko was happy, why couldn't that be enough? Now that Bruce was dead, she had a get-out-of-jail-free card for their whole plan--for their whole stupid  _ partnership  _ that, looking back on it now, she couldn't image why she had upheld for so long when he was just going to go along and break her trust anyway.

    Digging her fingernails into the sides of the mattress, Ji Woo groaned into her pillow. A quick glance at the digital clock on the bedstand revealed that it was now 8:25 PM. She groaned again, although this time it came out sounding more like a growl, then reached for the phone that was lying facedown on the stand next to the clock and a lamp with a burnt-out lightbulb. For the twelfth time in three hours, she opened up the messaging app and stared at Kimiko's last text to her.  _ Why do you ask?  _ That had to be willful ignorance on Kimiko's part, right? She was smart. Even if it had taken her a minute, she must have figured out by now that the body in her brother-in-law's apartment was none other than Ji Woo's coworker. Then again, maybe she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to stop and puzzle it out. Lips pursing, Ji Woo drummed her fingers against the screen of her phone.

_ R u still @ the apartment? _

__ Her fingers flew as she typed the message, hardly realizing what she was doing until she had already hit  _ "send" _ . She shifted herself into a sitting position, then held her breath as several seconds ticked by-- _ twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen _ \--before a new message popped up on the screen, accompanied by a little ding.

_ I'm at home now. Brought Hiro with me so he can get some rest & have some proper food. Police have brought the body in for a proper autopsy. _

     "Damn, that was fast," Ji Woo whispered to herself, fingers hovering over the screen as she tried to formulate a good response that wouldn't arouse suspicion. "But, hmm… what to do now?"

    Against her better judgement, the next thing she found herself typing out was:  _ Can I come over?  _ Before she could send the message, though, a follow-up text from Kimiko came through:

_ Still trying to get in touch with Ando… left a voicemail telling him to come to my house ASAP. Hiro is really worried about him. _

    At that, Ji Woo sat back against the headboard with a heavy sigh. Well, she couldn't just invite herself over in that case, could she? Hell, why had she been about to do so in the first place when it wouldn't accomplish a damn thing in any direction? Falling in love wasn't just making her soft, it was making her stupid. She tapped on her unsent message and moved to press the backspace key.

    Once again, however, her restless hands refused to cooperate with her better judgement. A weight had been hanging over her all throughout every interaction she and Kimiko had shared, and if there would ever be a right time to come clean about Bruce and the plan and everything, it was now. Now, when at least the news might bring Kimiko and her brother some comfort in the fact that the man Ando had killed was anything but innocent. Still technically a crime, but justifiable as an act of self-defense. So rather than deleting her message, turning her phone off, and just leaving the conversation at that, she sent Kimiko a text reading:  _ Can I come over? I have something really important to tell you _

    There was a long pause, during which Ji Woo felt as though she just might implode, before Kimiko replied with a simple  _ Sure. _

    And so, a good twenty minutes and one subway trip later, Ji Woo found herself standing on the side of the road, staring up her girlfriend's driveway at her house. Kimiko's borrowed suit jacket took the sting off the cold night air, and the darkness was pierced by a streetlamp casting a harsh glow down upon Ji Woo like a spotlight. It wasn't a mansion or anything, but it was a solid two stories with a front lawn and a garage. Many of her neighbours had some kind of decorations on their lawn, but Kimiko's yard was bare, nothing but a slate of frost-dusted gray-green grass. The cool air made Ji Woo's sinuses burn as she drew in a deep breath; she swallowed back a thick lump of apprehension and stepped forward up the slick pavement of the driveway.

    As she approached the house, scenarios flashed through her mind as to how her confession would play out. Kimiko would never forgive her, she knew, and that stung her heart more than the cold weather could ever sting her skin, but it would be worth it in the end to provide the Nakamuras with some peace of mind. Better than keeping her in the dark, anyhow. She would lead with the stuff about Bruce, she figured:  _ "You know that coworker of mine I've complained to you about? Well, he was the body you found in the apartment,"  _ she'd say, although she already dreaded seeing the way Kimiko would react to that revelation. So she would be as brisk as possible when she continued,  _ "But believe me when I say he had it coming. If I had to guess, I'd say it was self-defense. You see, Bruce O'Brien was a real nasty bastard. And, well, so am I." _ That would be as good a lead-in as any, she thought as she reached the top of the driveway and mounted the front steps. She paused atop the doormat, freezing in place for just a moment when she went to ring the doorbell. Could she really be so brash in her admittance? It wasn't like Kimiko was some priest she was coming to confess her sins to. It was her  _ girlfriend,  _ who seemed to have real feelings for her, even if those feelings were bound to fade after Ji Woo told her the truth.

_ "I never intended to fall in love for real,"  _ she could say, although she could never bring herself to look Kimiko in the eye as she said it.  _ "But I did, and that's why I felt the need to tell you. I love you, and I know it doesn't matter now because I'm a terrible person and I don't expect you to forgive me, but I just had to tell you. You're the woman of my dreams, and I'm sorry for playing with your heart, and I hope to hell you can find someone for yourself who'll treat you better than I did."  _ No, that wouldn't do at all. Regardless of what else she said, a confession of love in such a moment would sound like begging for forgiveness, and Ji Woo didn't want or deserve such a thing. She would just have to tell her, as quickly and succinctly as she could, that their whole relationship had been a lie and that she and Bruce had been plotting to kidnap Ando the whole time. That wouldn't be so hard, right?

    She took one final deep breath and let it out slowly, watching it curl out her lips in a twisting puff of white, then dug her hand out from the pocket of Kimiko's suit jacket and pressed her finger against the doorbell. From inside the house she heard Hiro yell “I’ll get it!” followed by the eager patter of his feet again the floor. And that was when it hit her. It was a cog in the machine, not a wrench, that Hiro was alive.

    She didn’t need Bruce in order to put their plan into action. She didn’t need Hiro’s kid, and with some (albeit pretty severe) last-minute modifications, she didn’t need his husband either. All she needed was the man himself--and with any luck, there would be no kidnapping required. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel a pang of guilt as Hiro threw open the door and she prepared to set the plan into motion, but it was more ethical than the original version, right? And once it was done, she could still come back and tell Kimiko everything, right? Right?

* * *

_ The sound of bullets rang out around her from all sides, and it was all she could do to try to dodge the little caps of metal that screamed past her as she ran. Her own gun felt cold and slick against her sweat-soaked palms, and she struggled not to fumble with the trigger as she took aim and fired, again and again. The walls of the dark alley she ran through seemed to close in on her, but she could see the harsh glint of sunlight coming from up ahead, and she knew that they were near the end of both the literal and proverbial tunnel. Sure enough, before their target could close the distance between himself and the open sky, a figure appeared at the end of the alleyway. Immediately, the man they were chasing screeched to a stop, panting as he whipped his gaze back and forth between his pursuers and this new figure. _

_     Keeping her eyes and her gun trained on their target, Claire nodded to her ally. "Go for it, kid. Take this creep out." _

_     The younger girl nodded, raising a gun which glinted sliver in the dim light. Silhouetted against the backdrop of a bright city street, she aimed and fired the fatal shot. Their target collapsed, falling forward and splashing facefirst into a puddle of filth. Considering the history listed on this man's file, Claire hoped that he hadn't been dead before hitting the ground--for slime like him, slime was the last thing he deserved to taste. _

_     "Welp, guess we'd better report back to the boss," she said, stopping to kick at their target's body as she stepped over it. "You coming, O'Brien?" _

_     She glanced over her shoulder at her coworker, only to find him lying in the alley several feet behind her. He was slumped motionless against a wall, riddled with bullet holes; Claire scrunched up her face at the sight. _

_     "Yeesh. That's the fifth time he's beefed it this month. Ms. Liu is gonna get pretty pissed if this keeps up." _

_     "I can help you carry him home, if you want," her still-living partner offered as she tucked her gun back into its holster. "You did a really good job today, by the way. Both of you did." _

_     "Aw, thanks!" Grinning, Claire clapped her coworker on the shoulder. "You did a good job too. We couldn't have done it without you, Molly." _

*

    No sooner had Claire woken from what was ostensibly a dream but she could tell was a memory, than she was bolt upright and tossing the covers off of herself in a frenzy.  _ What in the goddamn hell was that?! _ Her heart was pounding and her chest heaved as the images raced through her mind on replay: her running through a dark alley like a regular criminal, firing a gun at what looked like an ordinary man, Molly Walker being there for some reason? And Molly being the one to shoot the man--to  _ kill _ him, for reasons that she couldn't hope to remember or understand--and then for them to laugh it off like it was all in a day's work? That couldn't possibly be real. It had to have just been some crazy stress dream, right? Never mind that the memory held its shape in her mind far clearer and better-defined than any of her dreams tended to after she awoke. That couldn't have been what the gap in her memories was to be filled with--she couldn't have spent all those years hunting down people and murdering them like some kind of serial killer!

    As these frantic thoughts ran through her head, Claire found herself staggering out of her bedroom and down the hall into the bathroom. She turned on the faucet at the sink, twisted to its coldest setting, and cupped her hands under the water with the intent of splashing it onto her face. Instead, she simply stood there for a long moment, letting the water run over her hands as though she were submerging them in a river to wash off caked-on blood. The only source of light in the room was a faint glint through the translucent curtain of the window, and although she almost expected to cry from the terrible weight pressing down upon her, all her eyes did as she stood there was adjust to the dark. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror: awash in a faint silver glow, empty-eyed and harrowed.

    She looked like a ghost.

    Drawing in a long, shuddering breath, Claire turned the water off and squeezed her eyes shut. The dreamlike scraps of her missing memory danced at the front of her vision, filling every moment of her consciousness. Those people--her coworkers--treating death like just a minor inconvenience. The smell of blood, both their own and that of their targets who they hunted down and exterminated like rats. It  _ couldn't  _ have been what had really happened, what she had really done. Her hands shook as she reached for a towel to dry them with, only to find that there wasn't one on the rack. Instead she hastily wiped her hands dry against the loose-fitting fabric of the sweatshirt she had changed into earlier that night. It was pink, with a smiling cartoon dog on the front, and she bit back a bitter laugh as she looked down at herself while fumbling for the doorknob. Even though she could barely see herself in the dark, she knew she must have looked absolutely pathetic. Here she was, going on thirty and dressed like the little girl her parents probably still saw her as.

    She had a harder time falling back asleep than she had drifting off the first time, and that was saying something, because the first time around her brain had been buzzing with thoughts of her family and her life and what to do about her lingering schoolgirl crush on Gretchen. This time around she just felt hollow, like she was being eaten away at from inside. If those were her real memories, she tried to tell herself as she lay on her back in the dark looking up at the ceiling, context probably would have made everything better. The man she had been hunting down must have been bad news. Terms like "evil" and "villain" felt too black-and-white to her now, but he must have fallen into those categories for her to have ever agreed to hunt him down and kill him. So it was fine, probably. Maybe. If she only just had that context, then maybe… well, at least she would know how deeply the blood was caked under her nails.

    She must have eventually fallen back asleep, though, because the next thing she knew, the sun was shining in through her window and birds were chirping outside. Her mind was a thick, warm fog, devoid of the mental images which had haunted her mere hours before. She yawned, then smacked her lips together and rolled over with no intention of getting up just yet.

    She had only just settled back down, however, when she heard a knock on her door. She realized in her slowly waking state that such a knock must have been what had roused her in the first place. From out in the hallway, slightly muffled through the door, she heard Sandra calling to her.

    "Did you hear me, sweetie? I said, you really should be getting up now," she was saying. "It's already after ten o'clock!"

    "Already, huh?" Claire sighed to herself; sure enough, a glance at the old pink-rimmed analog clock on the wall over her bed revealed her mother's words to be true. Shifting herself into a sitting position, she bit back a yawn and replied, "Alright, just give me a minute!"

    The grim confusion of her dream trickled back to her as she climbed out of bed and set about her morning routine. She caught a glimpse of herself in her bedroom mirror, illuminated by soft bars of sunlight from the window, and thought that she looked at least a little more alive than she had the night before, but still different enough from her old self to leave her with a deep feeling of unsettlement. Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror again, with brighter and harsher fluorescent lighting and a metallic frame around her face, highlighted the dark circles under her eyes. At least the black dye was mostly washed out of her hair, but there were a few faded streaks of it still mixed in amongst the blonde, giving it a muddied look. She took her time getting ready that morning, not exactly in the mood to spring into action--not that there was any action that she was under any obligation to spring into anyway, as far as she knew. By the time she got dressed and came downstairs, it was 10:25, and it was only then that she realized her mother definitely should have been at work by then.

    "Oh, there you are," Sandra said, beaming at Claire as she walked into the kitchen. "Come sit down with me, sweetie. I made blueberry pancakes, and they've gone a bit cold by now, but we can reheat them…"

    "Thanks, Mom, but…" Claire bit her lip, unsure whether bringing it up would come off as ungrateful. "Why are you still here? Don't you have work?"

    Sandra paused, hand half-extended toward a plate of pancakes on the table. A vaguely sheepish look crossed over her face, and she sat back in her chair, shoulders slumping.

    "Er, I'm afraid I don't anymore," she said, flashing Claire a regretful smile. Then, in a quieter tone: "I haven't told Noah yet that I was laid off, so when he gets here, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell him."

    Claire frowned, not too surprised by the information but nevertheless displeased.

    "Man, that sucks," she said, giving Sandra a sympathetic clap on the shoulder as she pulled up a chair to sit beside her. "Although--why don't you want Dad to know?"

    "Oh, well, I don't know," she said with a sigh and a half-hearted shrug. "I'll tell him eventually, just… I'm afraid he'll worry about me, I suppose."

    "And should he be worried?" Claire asked, giving her mother a pointed look. As she spoke, she reached for the cutlery laid out on the table before her and started cutting into a pancake without paying any mind to its temperature.

    "Oh, no, I shouldn't think so," Sandra said. Her gaze dropped and she hesitated for a moment before saying, "I heard you get up in the middle of the night, sweetie, and before that I could hear you tossing and turning. I would ask if everything's okay, but I would imagine--no, I  _ know _ that things aren't okay, and I should stop trying to pretend like they are." She fixed her gaze on Claire again, her eyes wide and earnest, and she clamped a hand over Claire's wrist. "I can't imagine what you've been through, but I know that it's worse than me getting laid off. So don't you dare worry about me, not after you've been dead and then alive again and doing who-knows-what for five years."

    Her words and the firm and gentle grasp of her hand, coupled with the previous night's regained memory, brought an unexpectedly powerful wave of emotion crashing down upon Claire. Heart swelling, she put down her cutlery and laid her own hand atop her mother's. They held each other's gazes, and Claire smiled, not because either of their current situations were particularly good but because they were in their respective troubled situations together.

    "Thank you, Mom," she said, almost surprised by her own sincerity. "That--that actually means a lot to me."

    "I will need to go on a few errands later, though," Sandra added, relaxing back into her seat. "So you'll have the house to yourself for a while."

    Claire nodded in acknowledgement, but internally she winced at that information. Being alone with her thoughts for upwards of an hour? She wasn't looking forward to that, especially not if she was going to be regaining any more memories. In fact, part of her wished that the gap in her memory could just stay forgotten; it would make things a lot easier.

* * *

    Although it was late in the morning, the thick fog hanging over Highway 14 in California had yet to fully dissipate. Noah squinted through the windshield, keeping one foot on the brake pedal as he edged forward. According to his road map, he would eventually have to turn onto Highway 99 to reach LA. It would probably be a while before he reached the turnoff point, but he kept his eyes peeled for the sign nonetheless. He could barely see two feet out the window what with all the fog, but as far as he could tell, there wasn't much to see at this part of the highway outside of the trees and telephone poles at the side of the road.

    On the radio, which he had turned to a low volume so as not to distract himself from driving, a woman with a perky voice described the weather: "Fog clearing around noon, a high of 60 degrees, and a chance of rain in the evening." Sure enough, a glance at the sky in the rearview mirror revealed dark clouds that looked like they could burst into rainfall at any moment. After the weather, an ad break started, beginning with a man with an exaggerated southern accent telling him to hurry down to the big mattress sale. Groaning, Noah turned the dial over to a different station, only to be met with a cacophony of synthesized electronic noise that could have been either garbled vocals or what passed for instrumentals these days. He tried one more station (country music, ostensibly, but it was indistinguishable from pop) before giving up and shutting the radio off.

    Upon turning his attention back to the road, something came into view a few metres ahead of him. Its bright silver paint shone through the fog and caught Noah's eye, and as he approached the object he recognized it as a car parked on the shoulder of the road. Curious, Noah pulled over next to it and brought his own car to a stop. A couple of figures were standing just outside the car; they seemed to be looking at or for something. Perhaps their car had broken down? Noah honked his horn to get their attention, then rolled his window down and leaned out to talk to them.

    "What seems to be the trouble, gentlemen?" he asked.

    "We're just looking for someone, trying to figure out where they went," a surprisingly familiar voice replied. Noah was trying to recall where he'd heard it before when their companion spoke up as well in an accent he would recognize anywhere.

    "Why, if it isn't Noah Bennet!"

    "Hey, you're right," the first man replied, and now Noah was fairly sure where he recognized the voice from. "Hi, Noah; long time no see!"

    The two men outside the vehicle stepped forward, and the fog parted to reveal the faces of Matt and Mohinder. Noah had to admit he was a bit taken aback to see them, in no small part because he seemed to remember hearing that Matt had died several years ago. Apparently that rumour was untrue, though, since the psychic detective looked perfectly healthy. Mohinder, on the other hand… it was hard to see through the fog, but it looked like his arm was in a cast. Noah raised his eyebrows at that; he considered asking about it, but decided that it probably had nothing to do with him.

    "What brings you two out here?" he asked instead. "Who are you looking for?"

    The two exchanged a glance, and Mohinder leaned over to whisper something to Matt. Matt shrugged, and Mohinder hummed thoughtfully to himself before turning back to address Noah.

    "You may not believe us," he said, "But we're actually searching for your daughter. You see, a little over a month ago, I received an unexpected phone call from--"

    "What are you saying?" Noah interjected, his voice coming out a little more snappy than he intended. "Claire is gone, Suresh. You know that."

    "Yes, well, if you'll let me finish," Mohinder replied sharply, "I was about to inform you that she's come back to life."

    "Come back to--what?" Noah leaned forward out the window, brow furrowing. Surely he had misheard--that couldn't be right, could it? "Suresh, you had better not be making this up, I swear to God."

    "I assure you, Mr. Bennet, I would never lie about something like this," Mohinder told him. He held Noah's gaze as he spoke, and there was a firmness to his voice that told Noah he was telling the truth, or at least what he understood to be the truth. "I had been traveling with her since last month until we were separated earlier this week. I would have told you sooner, but the circumstances of her apparent resurrection were troubling, and I feared that your reaction would be…"

    He kept talking, explaining something about speech and memory and song lyrics, but Noah didn't hear a word of it. His mind pounded in time with his quickened pulse, urging him to dare believe what the geneticist was saying. It wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened where his daughter was concerned--could she really have come back to life even after permanently losing her power?

    Noah grit his teeth and shook his head. It was too good a thing to be true. Even if Mohinder wasn't lying, and Noah more or less trusted that he wasn't, there must have been some sort of trickery going on. In fact…

    The pounding of his heart paused as it skipped a beat, only to come back stronger--not from disbelieving excitement this time, but from cold dread. His mind flashed back to his last conversation with Angela and what she had warned him of: a shapeshifter taking the form of Claire in order to play a deadly trick on him. Grinding his teeth, he involuntarily tightened his grip around his car's steering wheel, only noticing he was doing it when the faux-leather dug into his palm hard enough to hurt. A weight settled like an anvil dropped onto his heart. Why was he almost disappointed? Of course it couldn't really be Claire. That was the kind of thinking that could have gotten him killed if he hadn't remembered Angela's warning. He drew in a deep breath and then swallowed down the bitterness rising in his throat.

    "Do you know where she is now?" he asked, keeping his voice level.

    Judging by the way Mohinder raised his eyebrows and blinked at him, he'd still been talking, and Noah had cut him off again. He seemed to take it in stride, though, clearing his throat and straightening up like a teacher about to begin a lecture.

    "That's exactly why Matthew and I are here," he said; beside him, Matt nodded in agreement. "This is right around where Claire and I were separated, and we were trying to determine which way her kidnapper had taken her so that we could track her down and rescue her."

    "She was kidnapped?" Noah demanded, his heart spiking with terror. A moment later, he internally berated himself. What was he getting all worked up about? It wasn't like it was actually her.

    "I assume you'll want to come with us, since she's your daughter and all," Matt said. "Obviously it's been a little hard to search for clues in all this fog, but we think they went this way."

    He pointed down the road in the same direction Noah was headed. Now Noah's interest was piqued. Did the shapeshifter know he was headed that way? Were they really after him at all, or were they after somebody else? What if the whole debacle with the twins had been part of a scheme by the shapeshifter to lure him to California and then kill him--but in that case, if they were that powerful, why not just come to his house and kill him, maybe make it look like an accident?

    "To Los Angeles, then?" he asked.

    "That could be the case," said Mohinder. The fog was finally beginning to dissipate now, so Noah could make out his thoughtful expression as he nodded. "Or the kidnapper could have taken her to Costa Verde. Your family lived there at one point, if I recall correctly."

    "Why, yes, that's right," Noah replied. Something clicked into place in the back of his mind, and his pulse quickened once more, but he kept talking without bringing it up. "And if I recall correctly, you shot me. No hard feelings, of course," he added wryly. "It was a long time ago."

    Despite the airy tone with which he addressed the geneticist, his internal monologue consisted of a long string of curses. Once again he recalled a message he had received--or rather, not received--the other day: the missed calls from Sandra. Why would his ex-wife call him up out of the blue? Why, if their dearly departed daughter had come home alive and well, of course. In other words, the shapeshifter could very well be at her house right that moment.

    Sandra was in danger.

    The realization filled Noah with a chill of dread stronger than he had anticipated. Even though their relationship had been over for a long time and they had only grown further apart since then, with both of them having a couple of short-lived relationships with new people in the meantime, it appeared that his lingering feelings towards his ex still hadn't entirely disappeared. Regardless, whatever the shapeshifter might have been planning to do to her, he had to stop it before it was too late--assuming, of course, that it wasn't  _ already  _ too late.

    "So, do you want to come with us or not?" Matt asked.

    "You know what, I think I'll go on ahead," Noah told him. "But you and Mohinder take care, alright?"

    With that, he rolled his window up, backed onto the road, and took off at a speed that was probably a little over the limit. As he drove, his gaze flickered up to the glove compartment, and he curled his fingers tighter around the wheel. It looked like he would have to put his gun to use after all.

* * *

    Angela's dreams had changed.

    That wasn't unusual at all, and certainly not always a bad thing. Future events were rarely written in stone, and even then, what was written in stone could very easily be scratched out or graffitied over at the last minute. In this case, she was no longer dreaming about Noah dying. That much was a relief; after losing so much already, the last thing she wanted was to lose her old friend as well. But the new premonition that came in its place, well…

_ A shotgun blast rang out in the humble suburban home, echoing through the living room. Blood splattered against one of the paintings on the wall, adorning the face of an elegantly groomed poodle with a splotch of dark red. One young woman's shriek was cut short, but another continued as a body slumped backwards and landed with its motionless head in their lap. _

_     From her vantage point, Angela couldn't see the faces of the two women, but she didn't need to. Even if she didn't know exactly why they were in that house, it was obvious who they were. And she could see the face of the man who had fired the gun. It was still smoking, and he kept it locked, loaded, and aimed as though expecting the woman he had just killed to suddenly spring back to life. Even so, there was a slight tremble to his hand, and a single tear rolled down his otherwise blank face. Did he realize, she wondered, that he had made a mistake? Did he realize who he had just killed? _

_     "Noah," Angela whispered aloud, although she knew the people in her dream couldn't hear her. "What have you done?" _

    She awoke from the dream in the middle of the night, drenched with sweat yet shivering from the cold. Lifting herself into a sitting position, she let out a shaky breath and pulled her nightgown tighter around herself. Then, with a hand that shook from a combination of cold, nerves, and old age, she reached over and turned her bedside lamp on. Immediately upon being bathed in its soft warm glow, her muscles relaxed and she let out a soft sigh, but her heart was still going fast enough that it felt like it would give out at any moment. A glance around the room revealed that she had left the window open--no wonder it was still cold. Slowly and gingerly, she raised herself out of bed, wincing all the way at the aches and pains of her body. Were either of her sons still in the picture, they would no doubt be clamoring for her to hire some sort of nurse, or worse yet, ship her off to some old folks' home.

    (It probably would be safe now for Peter to come home, anyway; the world at large still didn't love people with powers, but things had calmed down a lot. Nobody was committing hate crimes against evos anymore. But of course, Peter wouldn't bother coming home at this point, because he had gotten too comfortable out there in the woods with  _ Sylar _ . If Angela lived for another ninety years, she would still never understand what her son saw in that bastard.)

    A blast of cold night air caught her in the face, knocking her out of her self-pitying thoughts. She paused with her hands on the window frame, staring out at the night sky. You couldn't see stars worth a damn thing in a metropolis like New York, but the moon was shining silver and transparent through the clouds, and in combination with the blinking neon and fluorescent city lights it was almost pretty. There was frost along the windowsill, and when Angela breathed out, she could see a little puff of white slither out from between her lips. It was hard to make out in the darkness, especially when positioned so high above the cityscape, but it truly was the city that never slept; even in the middle of the night, people were still milling around down there, bumping into each other and filling the air with the soft hum of a hundred snippets of conversation.  _ Life goes on, doesn't it?  _ Angela thought, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.  _ And it will keep going on long after I'm gone. _

    She eased the window shut and went back to bed feeling almost refreshed. It was only after she had fallen back asleep that she remembered what had woken her up in the first place.

_ Now she was back in that corridor with the wretched wallpaper, and things were calmer than she had seen them there before. There were no gunshots ringing out this time, no blood staining her shoes--her hiking boots, to be specific. She raised her eyebrows upon glancing down at herself. It didn't seem like the sort of outfit she would wear at all. Now that she took a closer look, it didn't even seem like her body. _

_     She didn't get the chance to mull it over for long, though, because the dream was once again brought to an abrupt halt by the sensation of something striking hard and sharp and deadly against her neck. _

_     (Or was it really  _ her  _ neck at all?) _

* * *

    Flying all the way around the world really took it out of you even when the flying was done on an airplane rather than with one's own body. Needless to say, by the time he and Sylar arrived in Tokyo, Peter felt like he was about to fall asleep on the spot. They touched down at the closest airport, where they picked up a city map, and from there took a bullet train over to the hotel Micah had spoken of in his broadcast. Having never been on a bullet train before, Peter had climbed aboard fully expecting to fall asleep en route, but it turned out that standing in a metal cylinder with strangers pressing up against him at all sides, going about a hundred miles an hour, kept him pretty thoroughly awake. Now, as he and Sylar approached the Togenkyo Hotel, he tried and failed to bite back a yawn.

    "So, uh, this is the place," he said, glancing up from the map and brushing his bangs out of his eyes. He nodded toward the lit-up neon sign outside the building. A few of the letters were flickering, and others had burnt out altogether, resulting in a sign reading GE K O  H EL.

    "Mm." Sylar followed his gaze to the sign, and his lips twitched with amusement. "Gecko hell, eh?"

    "That's what I call it when… when I, um… that's how it feels when…" Peter trailed off as he discovered that he was too tired to think of a decent joke. "You know what, let's just go in there and get this over with."

    Even with the streets all lit up in vibrant neon, it was still pretty dark out, so it was hard to get a good look at the hotel from the outside. From the inside, though, Peter could tell the second he walked in that it was no five-star luxury destination. The walls of the lobby were painted an odd tan colour, but there were huge cracks in the wall in several places, and several squares were missing from the linoleum floor. There was a faint sort of musty smell in the air, and it grew stronger once they walked past the lobby and into the hotel proper. Peter wrinkled his nose at the scent, but he didn't slow his pace as he walked down the corridor, Sylar following close behind him.

    "I have to say," Sylar commented as they walked along, "This is a very… shall we say, bold wallpapering choice."

    "Come on, don't talk about the wallpaper at a time like this," Peter chided--although following his boyfriend's gaze, he was disposed to agree. "Who are you, Oscar Wilde?"

    "Not quite," he retorted. "After all, I'm not the one who's--" He broke off, mouth snapping shut, then cleared his throat and said, "Well, nobody's dying, of course. That's what we came here to prevent."

    Recognizing Sylar's attempt to be considerate, Peter flashed him a weary smile and gave his hand a squeeze. Sylar slipped his hand into Peter's, squeezing back. The feeling of its warmth in his grasp steadied Peter's heart and kept him feeling balanced as he reached the door to room 17. Taking a deep breath, he raised his hand and rapped his knuckles against the wood.

    There was no response at first. After a few seconds, Peter knocked again, a little louder this time (he didn't want to be too loud, because most people at the hotel would probably be sleeping). He was met with the startled "Hnnh?" of somebody awoken after they had just starting dozing off. A moment later, the door swung open and he was met with the relieved grin of a shockingly adult Micah Sanders. It shouldn't have been that surprising that he was all grown up now--that was just how time worked, and he had been looking pretty grown up the last time Peter had seen him anyways, but still--he had stubble now and everything. Looking at him, Peter was reminded with a harsh twang of nostalgia that if Micah was in his twenties now, Claire would have been almost thirty--the operative term, of course, being  _ would have _ .

    "Oh, good, you got my message," Micah said. He stood in the doorframe for a moment, gaze flickering between Peter and Sylar, before he blinked and stepped a little awkwardly to the side to let them through. "Uh, come on in and take a look. Like I said over the radio, Tracy is in pretty bad shape right now, but…"

    He trailed off, gesturing at the bed in the corner of the room. Peter wasted no time in crossing the room to get a better look; Sylar hung back a bit, looking around the room and muttering some comment that Peter couldn't quite make out.

    Sure enough, Tracy lay unconscious on the bed, with the covers wrinkled but still laid over her. Her complexion was deathly pale, interlaced with purple lines that Peter recognized as corresponding to the locations of veins and arteries. He swallowed hard as he pressed his fingers against her throat. If the concentration of the poison in her blood was that strong, she must have had an amazing constitution for him to still be picking up a pulse from her, even one as weak and fluttery as the one she had. She felt cool and clammy to the touch, and her breathing was shallow. A damp cloth was laid across her forehead, but that wasn't enough to stop pools of sweat from accumulating on other parts of her body. Kneeling down in front of her, Peter gently peeled the cloth off her forehead and dabbed around at a few other areas, then pulled down her covers to assess the situation with the wound in her chest. To his pleasant surprise, although her white top bore a deep red bloodstain on the front, unbuttoning it revealed that her body way devoid of any mark. Something must have healed her old injury and kept her from immediate death at the hands of Barbara's poison.

    Thinking back to the harrowing incident at the hospital, Peter realized with a start that he really might have saved her then after all. Dropping to his knees at her side like that, he had been in too much of a panic to notice, say, cutting his hand on the knife she had yanked from herself. And since the cut would have healed itself up, there wouldn't be anything to notice later--nothing but a few drops of blood that might have fallen from his hand and directly into Tracy's liquefying body. Although not enough to cure her of the poison, it could very well be enough to lessen its effects just enough not to prove fatal, and maybe even close up a superficial chest wound. Although it was only a theory, this discovery nevertheless made Peter feel like a weight had been lifted from his chest. He hadn't failed Tracy at all. He  _ had  _ saved her, just like he'd promised, and now he was going to do it again, properly this time.

    "So, how do you want to do this?" he asked Micah. He could sense anxiety rolling off the young man in waves, and it made his heart clench despite his own confidence in the power of the blood transfusion. "We'll have to take her to a hospital, right? Unless you have a way to get the equipment in here, but that might be making things needlessly complicated."

    "Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Micah agreed. "But jostling her around might make the poison circulate faster, so it would be safest if we teleport her there."

    "Oh," Peter said, his eyebrows shooting up at the suggestion. A hot prickle of shame seeped into his skin at the realization that, after using only Sylar's powers for so long, he'd almost forgotten he could borrow other abilities as well. "I don't have access to teleportation right now, but that does sound like a plan."

    "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Sylar interjected. He was still hanging back a few feet, drumming his fingers against the bedside table. "Don't you have to touch somebody to borrow their power?"

    "Huh? No, not always," he said. "Only when I'm borrowing a power from someone I don't know well. If it’s someone I know, I just have to summon up the feelings I get when I think of them."

    "So you're saying you could have just teleported us here instead of us flying halfway around the globe?"

    The shame in Peter's cheeks grew hotter; he gulped and averted his gaze. Sylar let out a wry chuckle and then thankfully dropped the issue, allowing Peter to focus on the memories he summoned into his mind. He opened his heart to the amazement he'd felt that day on the subway, so many years ago now, when time had come to a standstill and a mysterious man from the future had appeared before him. He then shifted that train of thought to the amusement he'd gotten from seeing the antics of the regular, non-future version of that same man, as well as the occasional irritation when his personality became too much to deal with, and the sense of camaraderie of working and planning together to save the world. A smile crept onto his face, and he felt something shift within him as one borrowed ability was swapped out for another.

    "Alright, I'm ready to go now," he announced. "Micah, you'll be coming with us, right?"

    Micah nodded. "I'll be your cultural liaison, so to speak," he said. "For my work as 'Hero Truther', I taught myself a bunch of different languages so I could spread my message all around the globe. And I don't know how much Japanese either of you speak, but we are in Tokyo, so…"

    "Oh, I picked up a few words here and there from back in my youth," Sylar said. Then he paused, quirking an eyebrow. "Sorry, what did you say you'd been working as?"

    "I can fill you in later," he replied. With an urgent bounce on his heels, he turned back to Peter. "Okay, then, let's go."

    Nodding, Peter laid one hand on Tracy's unconscious form and the other on Micah's shoulder. Sylar hesitated for a moment, like he was debating whether or not to come along, then leaned in and laid his hand on Peter's arm. With that, Peter closed his eyes and summoned the image of a hospital into his mind. He could only hope that things wouldn't turn out so disastrously this time around.

* * *

    Despite the pervasive fog that morning, it had turned out to be a fairly nice day--the sun had finally come out a little past noon, and the temperature was about as good as it was going to get in mid-to-late November. While her mother was out running errands, Claire put on a jean jacket and a pair of gloves and went outside to play with Mr. Muggles in the backyard.

    "Okay, boy," she said, kneeling down and shaking the stick she held directly in front of the elderly dog's face. He sniffed curiously at the stick, confirming that he had finally detected its presence. "Go get it!"

    She gave the stick a light toss; it landed only a few feet away. Mr. Muggles jerked his head around to watch the stick's trajectory and let out a wheezy bark, but he stayed put. Sighing, Claire reached over to where the stick had landed and tried again, tossing it a little further this time. This time the dog actually got up and trotted over to where the stick lay on the flattened gray-brown grass. Rather than retrieving it, however, he simply plopped himself down and began gnawing on it.

    "Alright, I guess this isn't going to work out," she said, caught between amusement and wistfulness as she watched him nibble on the stick with his yellowed fangs. "Good try, though."

    She leaned over to scratch him behind the ears. Just before her hand reached his fur, though, his tiny body stiffened and his ears perked up. A decidedly un-intimidating growl rose in his throat as, from up at the front of the house, Claire heard a car pulling into the driveway. Raising her eyebrows, she stood up and peered up the front walkway. It took her a moment, but she recognized the car--it was her own, or at least it had been before her death.

    "Huh," she muttered aloud. The back of her neck pricked as she began walking through the yard toward the driveway, and yet she felt drawn toward the car like a magnet. "This… doesn't bode super well."

    At her heels, Mr. Muggles trotted after her with his teeth still clamped around the stick. That same high-pitched growl was still rumbling from his drawn-back lips, and his hackles were raised. Looking between him and the car, Claire's heart sped up; she swallowed hard and picked up her pace, practically breaking into a sprint toward the front of the house.

    Just as she reached the driveway, the driver's side door swung open and a young woman stepped out. She looked like she was in her late teens or early twenties, with blonde hair and a bright smile. Claire had no idea what this stranger was grinning about--because she definitely  _ was  _ a stranger, albeit one with something oddly familiar about her--but the young woman's face absolutely lit up when she stepped out of the car and locked eyes with Claire. She sucked in a breath and whispered something Claire couldn't make out, and… was she  _ crying _ ?! Claire's brows furrowed, and the anxious pounding in her chest grew stronger as she watched the strange girl's reaction to seeing her. She cautiously stepped forward, holding her hands palms-up just in case the girl thought she was armed (an unlikely assumption to make, but you could never be too careful).

    "Good… good afternoon," she began, while scenarios flashed in the back of her mind about who this person could be, what they wanted from her, why they had her old car of all things. (It definitely was her old car, too, not just the same model. Although it was much more faded and partially peeled off now, she recognized a silly bumper sticker with a picture of a lizard that she had put on the hubcap as a teen.) "Can I, uh… help you?"

    The strange young woman said nothing; she simply stood there staring at Claire with a wide-eyed, teary grin. Then the passenger side door opened as well, and out stepped another young woman, this time one that Claire very much did recognize. After all, she'd just glimpsed a memory her in her dream that past night.

    "Um, hello," Molly greeted her with a shy wave. "You're Claire Bennet, right?"

    "Huh? Yep, that's me," she said. "It's, er… nice to see you again."

    Even knowing how rude it was, she couldn't help but stare, thinking of what she had seen in her regained memory. What level of crazy coincidence was it that an aspect of her forgotten past would literally show up outside her front door? This could be the key to all the answers her own synapses refused to provide!

    Except maybe not, judging by the way Molly's face crinkled with confusion at her greeting. She turned to her companion and leaned over to whisper something to her. Her companion replied with a shrug and a slight shake of her head. Molly sighed and bit her lip.

     "I'm sorry," she said quietly--not a whisper, but soft enough that it felt like she was embarrassed to say it. "I don't remember meeting you before."

    "No?" Claire blinked, taking another cautious step forward. "We were both at Kirby Plaza, right? I know you were pretty little, though, and it was probably pretty traumatic--I didn't know what was going on with you at the time, but my dad filled me in on it afterwards, and…"

    She trailed off as Molly took a step backward, shaking her head. She hadn't noticed until now, but the young woman's hands were balled into fists at her sides, and now those fists were trembling. She stuffed them into her pocket as her face contorted as though on the verge of tears, and she let out a whimper.

    "Molly, hey!" her companion cried, running around to her side of the car. Molly stumbled while taking another step backward, and her companion caught her and held her steady as she trembled. "Are you okay?" Her wide-eyed gaze flickered back up to Claire, and she swallowed hard, wrapping her arms around Molly. "I--I'm sorry, I know you didn't mean to, but I think you might've just triggered--I mean, I think some more of her memories might be coming back. And, uh, probably not good ones."

    "Oh, shit," Claire hissed. A harsh pang of guilt squeezed at her gut as she watched Molly's breathing speed up into hyperventilation. "I-is there anything I can do, or…?"

    "I don't know… I don't think so," the young woman said. Even as she spoke, her attention was fixed on Molly; she clutched at the older girl's shoulders with the intensity of a parent at an ailing child's bedside. "She… she had all of her memories wiped up to a certain point, and now she's starting to get them back, but I guess she had a really awful life because… because…"

    She trailed off, gulping. In her arms, Molly let out a ragged gasp and her eyes snapped open. Immediately, the other girl's face was awash with relief; she looped her arms around Molly's back and tugged her into an embrace. It only lasted a second, though, before Molly ducked away, still breathing quicker than normal. She raised her sleeve to her face to scrub away tears, then stepped forward and addressed Claire.

    "I--I'm sorry about that," she whimpered. "But Malina is right. I… my memories… I'm starting to remember things, and I don't like what I'm seeing."

    "I'm sorry," Claire said, for lack of anything better to say. What  _ could  _ she say to a girl she barely knew when confronted with such a predicament? Well, other than… "You know, this is going to sound crazy, but a similar thing has been happening to me recently."

    Molly's eyes widened. "Really?"

    "Well, not nearly as bad as with you--I still remember most of my life," she amended. "But I have lost a pretty decent chunk of my memories. You girls may not know this, but I actually died for real a few years ago--"

    "We know," Molly's companion--Malina, she'd called her?--blurted. (It was funny that that was her name, because it was the name Claire had picked out for her daughter. Two coincidences in one day--how wild was that?) Then she blinked, a faint blush spreading over her cheeks, and cleared her throat. "I mean, uh, you are pretty well-known in certain circles, so…"

     "Huh. Yeah, I guess I am," she said. Honestly, as much as she had intended to change the world when she jumped off the ferris wheel, the notion that doing so had made her a well-known figure was still baffling. "Anyway, I'm missing my memories from between my initial resurrection and last month. They're beginning to trickle back now, but…" She suppressed a shudder. "I think I got up to some really shady stuff in that time frame."

   The young women exchanged a meaningful look. Malina nodded, then stepped forward, keeping a hand on Molly's arm.

    "Pardon the intrusion, but can we talk about this inside?" she asked, nodding toward the house. "I think all three of us might have a little more in common than we realize."

* * *

    Immediately upon hearing the doorbell ring, Hiro sprang to his feet with a shout of "I'll get it!" He took off down the hall toward the front door, heart pounding with the anticipation of who he was pretty sure it would be. Even though Ando still hadn't replied to any of his and Kimiko's messages, he had to have seen them by now, right? And now he was here, and they could finally reunite and reconcile, and… Hiro broke into a giddy grin as he closed the distance between himself and the door, wrenched the knob to the side, and flung it open.

    "Honey, it's me, I'm--" He broke off, coming to an abrupt halt and blinking in confusion at the woman standing before him. "…You're not Ando."

    “No, I’m not,” she replied, giving him a sheepish grin. “But can I come in anyway?”

    Hiro stared blankly at her for a moment, unsure who she was, until she cleared her throat and he recalled having seen her a few hours prior. It was Kimiko’s girlfriend! (What had Kimiko addressed her as again--“Ji-chan”? He guessed that was a nickname, though.) So, yes, of course it was okay for her to come im. He nodded and stepped to the side, motioning for her to step inside.

    "What brings you here?" he inquired. "If you're here to visit Onee-san, she's in the shower right now, but I can go let her know you’re here if you want.”

    "No, actually, I'm here for you," she said. "You see, I need you to use your teleportation ability to help me out."

    Hiro frowned, struck with a twinge of guilt at the sight of her hopeful expression.

    "I'm sorry," he said, "But I don't think I have my powers anymore."

    "You don't  _ think  _ you do?" she echoed, arching an eyebrow. "Have you checked?"

    "Well, no, but--"

    "Then why not at least try?" she suggested, laying a hand on his arm. Her grip was much firmer than expected, and Hiro winced; she quickly loosened her grip and shot him another apologetic smile. "Try taking me to… hmm, let's say Kansas."

    As suddenly as all this had come on, and despite his doubt when it came to the possession or lack thereof of his abilities, Hiro was never one to turn down the request of a civilian in need. And, actually, now that he thought about it… respawning had restored his life and his in-game outfit, so why not his powers too?

    "Okay!" he agreed with a nod. "One instant trip to Kansas is hopefully coming right up!"

    Since she hadn't specified a location, he summoned to mind the first place he thought of when it came to the state in question: a house by a cornfield, formerly occupied by his late nemesis (well, “nemesis” in quotes, anyway) and her father. Holding the image of the cornfield in his mind, he screwed up his face and focused.

    Sure enough, he felt the environment around him shift. He was met with a cool, damp breeze; shivering, he opened his eyes to find himself standing amidst tall stalks of corn. Through a gap in the stalks, a small house was visible. Although it had gotten a paint job since the last and, until then, only time he'd seen it, he knew on an instinctive level that he had reached his correct destination. Excitement swelled within him at the realization as he stepped back to view his new surroundings. He still had his powers after all!

    "I did it!" he cheered, pumping his arms into the air. Kimiko's girlfriend chuckled and gave him a nod of approval.

    "What do you know," she murmured, pushing apart clumps of cornstalks to peer at the house. "This is exactly the place I was thinking of."

    "It is?" Hiro asked, his eyebrows rocketing up. "Don't tell me you knew the Millbrooks?"

    "Oh, yeah," she said, her expression and voice turning wistful. "I still check in with the old man from time to time to see how he's doing. I don't see his truck, so he must be out right now. Even so…"

    She wiggled through the gap in the cornstalks and walked over to the house. Hiro followed after her, intrigued. After walking past the house and into the stretch of property behind it (what you would call a yard were it not in a vast stretch of farmland) she came to a stop in front of a wooden cross sticking up from the ground amidst a patch of wilting wildflowers. Long-buried emotions swelled back up within Hiro at the sight of the grave and the name etched into it, and his face involuntarily contorted into a melancholy grimace. He swallowed hard, internally praying that he wouldn't start crying in front of this near-stranger.

    "Aw, crap, I didn't bring flowers or anything," she muttered, her gaze lowering. "But I guess I can still…" She knelt down, then glanced back up at Hiro. "Could you maybe, um, stay back for a moment?"

    Hiro nodded, stepping away from his sister's girlfriend. Fixing her attention onto the grave, she let out a long sigh and laid her hands on the ground. Then, digging her fingers ever so slightly into the earth, she muttered something in a language that Hiro recognized as Cantonese. After several seconds, she stood back up, wiping the dirt off her hands, and turned to Hiro with a faint smile.

    "Thank you for taking me here," she said. "If it's not too much trouble, do you think you could take me a few other places as well?"

    "Of course," he replied. "That was Cantonese you were speaking, right?" he added as she laid her hand on his shoulder to prepare for teleportation. "Are you from the continent?"

    "You could certainly say that, yeah," she said. "I'm of mixed Chinese/Korean descent, actually. The name's Liu, by the way."

    "And what brings you to Japan? Other than courting my sister, of course," he added with a sly grin.

    Immediately after saying that, he was hit with a spike of panic when Ms. Liu hesitated before responding. Had he misread social cues and said the wrong thing again? To his relief, though, she let out a bemused hum and gave him an answer.

    "I'm a professional photographer, so I travel around a lot," she explained. "That's how I made so many friends in America. Unfortunately, several of them passed away, all within a few years of each other. Every once in a while, I try to set aside the time to visit their graves. I didn't think I would find the time to this year, since I've been so busy, but…" She grinned, raising her hand to rub away the beginnings of tears from her eyes. "Well, thanks to you, I'm able to once again visit my dearly departed friends."

    Hiro returned her smile, overcome by the weight of her words. It filled him with pride and warmth and satisfaction to think that he'd been able to make someone so happy. He truly was back in business, wasn't he?

    "Where would you like to go next?" he asked her.

    "A cemetery in Nevada," she told him. "I don't suppose you know anything about the Sanders family?"

    "I--er, no, not very well, but…” Hiro blinked at her, incredulous. "I saw their son just a few hours ago!"

    He refrained from describing the circumstances of that encounter, unsure as to how much Ms. Liu knew about everything that had happened to him and how much Kimiko would have wanted her to know. She slowly nodded at his reply, almost as if she had expected him to say that. Brows furrowing, Hiro wracked his brain to think of whether he might have met Ms. Liu at some point before, but he came up completely empty.

    "Yes… it's a shame about what happened to the boy's parents, isn't it?" she sighed.

    "It is," Hiro agreed. He briefly considered mentioning that Ando used to watch Niki's webcam stripper videos, but quickly decided that it was neither relevant nor helpful information, so he kept his mouth shut.

    With that, he squeezed his eyes shut and took them to the aforementioned cemetery. Once again, he hung back as Ms. Liu went about her business. It was a private matter for her, after all--and unlike with Daphne, Hiro had no personal connection to Niki or DL aside from his husband formerly watching scandalous videos of the former, so it really wasn't his place to kneel by their graves. While he hung back and listened to her muttering in her native tongue, something nagged at the back of his mind. Everything about the current situation seemed a bit strange to him in a way that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Even so, he tried not to think much of it, and when Ms. Liu was done and approached him for her next trip he met her with an unassuming smile and didn't say anything.

    Sometimes, as he had learned the hard way on a few occasions, it was better to keep his mouth shut.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some reunions go a whole lot better than others for our reconverging heroes. Hiro comes home to his husband after a long day of work. Molly avoids one breakdown only to spiral into another. Matt and Mohinder attempt a rescue mission.

    Although the interior of the Bennet household was at a normally comfortable temperature, the air felt stifling to Malina as she sat at the kitchen table across from her mother. All she could do was stare, and yet Claire barely looked at her. That much was Malina's own fault for not yet telling her who she was, of course, but she still couldn't help feel a sharp twinge of jealousy at the sight of Claire leaning forward, gaze fixed intently on her conversational partner. Molly was relaying the story that Malina had read from her journal when they met, about having spent a few months living in the very house they were in now. Once Molly got to the end, describing how Sandra hadn't believed her and turned against her, Claire sat back with a thoughtful hum and a slight frown.

    "No wonder Mom didn't tell me about it," she mused. "I bet she feels guilty about not believing you, now that it turns out I was alive after all."

    "When I found your location, that was before you lost your memories, right?" Molly asked; Claire nodded. "But you were headed towards Texas, where you said you woke up. It looked like you were moving fast--maybe you were being chased?"

    "Or I could have been the one chasing somebody down, if the memory I saw last night is anything to go on."

    "If you lost your memories a little after mine, though…" Molly bit her lip, and although her hands were concealed under the table, Malina could imagine her worrying the fabric of her skirt. "If you're sure we worked for the same people, did we do something to make them mad?"

    "That seems like a solid guess," Claire agreed. "And unless my dad's old coworker is up to his old tricks--which, I've been over it with Professor Suresh; it's not likely--then whoever erased both of our memories…"

    She turned to Malina, fixing her with a gaze as intense as a spotlight. Malina gulped, a bead of sweat trickling down her neck.

    "…Probably erased yours as well, right?" Claire continued without missing a beat (unlike Malina's heart when she realized the question was directed at her). "The memories of your brother, I mean."

    "Y-yeah, probably," Malina replied, internally cringing as she spoke at how yelp-ish her voice came out. She cleared her throat and tried again, although now that her mother was finally looking directly at her, she found that she couldn't quite look her in the eyes. "Noa--I mean, my grandpa called yesterday to tell me that he's okay now, which is… I mean, I want to say it's a relief, and I guess it kinda is, except that I still don't even remember what my brother was like. I mean, what if he's a total jerk? Would I even want to remember a guy like that?"

    Claire's gaze lingered on her for a moment, giving her an odd look. Malina squirmed under it, heart pounding, and wished that she had stopped talking sooner. What the hell was wrong with her, anyway? Why couldn't she just come out and tell Claire that she was her daughter? What was she afraid of? Thankfully, after a few seconds, Claire gave Malina a weary half-smile in response to her comment and turned her attention back to Molly. Immediately upon having her mother look away from her, Molly's shoulders slumped with relief. However, no sooner had she relaxed than what Claire said next made her seize up with tension.

    "Sorry, Molly, but can we finish this conversation later? I'd like to talk to Malina alone for a little while."

    "Oh!" Molly's eyebrows shot up, and she glanced between Claire and Malina with dawning understanding in her eyes. Then she grinned and nodded, pushing her chair back and standing up with a flustered little bow. "Yes, of course. I'll go get some fresh air."

    "Wait, that's--" Malina began, extending a hand towards Molly as she turned to leave. She stopped herself just as quickly as she started, though, biting down on her tongue and retracting her hand. Oh, she was just being stupid now, wasn't she? This was what she had  _ come here to do! _

    Claire turned back to her, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "When you mentioned your grandfather," she began, "were you about to refer to him as Noah?"

    "What? No," Malina blurted, waving her hands wildly in front of her face. "No, I was about to say 'no one', as in, 'no one knows what my brother is like since I don't remember him!"

    As she spoke, she pushed her feet against the ground in order to back herself away. The legs of the chair scraped against the floor in the process, resulting in a horrible screeching sound that made her cringe. Claire frowned and leaned forward, her gaze drilling into Malina like a needle into a vein.

    "This brother who you can't remember…" There was more hesitation in her voice than Malina expected. She blinked, caught off guard by the way her mother sounded--like she was about to make a guess but was terrified that her answer was wrong. "Is he… he wouldn't happen to be your twin, would he?"

_ Oh, shit _ , Malina thought.  _ She knows.  _ Then she reminded herself,  _ That's a good thing, dummy. It's the whole reason you came here to begin with _ . She took a deep breath and, looking as close to Claire's inquisitive eyes as she could bring herself, gave her a slow nod.

    Claire let out a short, shaky breath, and quickly pulled it back in again. A bit of movement in the corner of her vision caught Malina's eye, and she glanced downward to see Claire's knees pressed together with anxiety and her hands clutching the arms of her chair.

    "Do you know his name?"

    "Mm-hmm. Noah told me," she replied, making sure to enunciate her quasi-grandfather's name this time. Claire's eyes widened and she sucked in a breath, but subtly enough that it seemed she was trying not to show how on the edge of her seat she was. "His name is Tommy."

    Claire blinked, and all of a sudden she seemed to deflate. She sat back in her chair as though thrown there by an opponent, slumping defeated against the back of the chair with a blank stare that she still kept fixed on Malina. Then she blinked again and lowered her gaze.

    "Oh," she mumbled, picking at a chip in the chair's varnish even though her nails were too short to dig in properly. "That's, uh. That's cool."

    Malina leaned forward, brows furrowing. What was up with that reaction? Was Claire  _ disappointed  _ that she was her daughter? Had she discovered upon her resurrection that she had never really wanted to be a mother in the first place? The thought, as far-fetched as it may have been, filled Malina with an awful feeling of rejection. She squirmed in her seat, averting her gaze and turning it instead to the kitchen sink. There were no dishes stacked there at all, at least not that she could see from her angle--Claire's mother must have been a very studious housekeeper. It was basically the opposite of how things were at Malina's dorm. She tried to keep up with chores, but it was hard to juggle that and her schoolwork. With a roommate--like the one she'd apparently had in the form of her twin before his abduction--things would go a lot easier.

    "It's just kind of a weird coincidence, is all," Claire said after a moment. There was a strangled note to her voice, and when Malina looked back at her, she had her hands folded in her lap and was staring down at them. "You see, when I was--before I--well, I told you that I died, but I guess I didn't mention--um, I died in childbirth, and before that… when I was pregnant…" She trailed off, shaking her head, before trying again. "It was twins--a boy and a girl, the doctors said--and I'd already picked out names for them. I was going to name the boy Nathan, after my bio-dad, and the girl Malina. Plus, my dad's name is Noah--uh, my other, my adoptive dad--so. Y'know, it's a weird coincidence."

    All Malina could do was stare, incredulous, at her mother as she rambled on. Was this… was this for real? Was her mother really every bit as awkward and nervous and unsure as she was? At the point when Claire fell silent and once more averted her gaze, she knew that she couldn't put it off any longer. Breaking into a smile, Malina stood up and leaned across the table to lay a hand on Claire's shoulder. Claire flinched at the contact, but then she looked back at Malina, and without warning her eyes began to brim with tears.

    "You're her, aren't you?" she asked, raising her hand to wrap it around Malina's. "You're my daughter?"

    Malina nodded, gulping, and before she knew what hit her she was blinking back tears as well. "And you're my mom," she replied. "I--I've wanted to meet you my whole life, but I… I never thought I'd get the chance."

    "Oh, Malina," Claire murmured, stroking her thumb against the back of Malina's hand. "I'm sorry I was never able to be there for you. I'm so sorry. But you--you've turned out amazing, I can tell just by looking at you."

    She squeezed Malina's hand as she spoke, as though to make sure it was really there in her grasp and not going to slip away. Malina's heart was going a mile a minute, and her throat was all clogged up with emotion such that she couldn't get another word out. Then, before she knew what hit her, Claire jumped out of her seat and ran around to the other side of the table, where she tugged Malina up out of her seat and into an embrace.

    The movement was sudden enough to knock the wind out of her, and for a moment she dangled breathless in her mother's arms, taken aback by how warm she felt and how fiercely she was holding her. Then, sucking in a deep breath and burying her face in her mother's shoulder, she wrapped her arms around her and returned the hug. With her face pressed right up against where the neckline of Claire's t-shirt met her warm skin, close enough to feel the steady pulse beneath, and her hands wrapped around her back and almost unconsciously gripping at the fabric of her jean jacket, it was almost painful how tangible she was. As incredible as it was, as much as it made her head spin, she didn't doubt for a moment that this was all really happening. They were there, together, united at last after far too long. And now that Malina had finally found her mother, she never wanted to let her go.

* * *

    Normally Kimiko tried to conserve water as much as possible, for both economic and environmental reasons, but after the day she'd had she could have stayed in the shower and let the hot water pour over her for hours on end. As it was, she must have stood there for a solid five minutes before actually picking up the soap and washing. She took her time, too, running her hands up and down her body and occasionally stopping to try to work out a knot in her muscles; taking the opportunity to try some of the exfoliating gel she had received as a gift several months ago and rarely used; massaging her scalp while rubbing in the shampoo and then taking the time to rinse her hair out so that it would dry properly. By the time she was done, the bathroom ceiling was dripping with condensation, and a thick fog of heat hang in the air. Nevertheless, she had to admit that the tension in her shoulders wasn't half as bad as when she stepped in.

    She had, of course, let Hiro have a bath first upon coming home; by now he probably would have picked out a change of clothes and would likely be watching television in the living room or maybe having something to eat. Kimiko hoped that at least a few of her clothes would fit him; she had bought a few boyish outfits on a whim after coming out but quickly found they weren't quite her style, but they'd cost enough that just giving them away felt like a waste, so it would be good if her brother could put them to use. She'd also managed to find an old pair of glasses from when he was a kid, although why and how such a thing had ended up in her house eluded her to no end. His prescription was probably different enough now that the lenses would make him dizzy, but she had still put the glasses on the bedside table in her guest room just in case they still fit.

    Fussing over her little brother in such a way… it really did feel almost like they were kids again. Of course the circumstances were different now, but even so, Kimiko couldn't help but feel a sharp pang of nostalgia twist inside her chest as she walked through the hall and heard the TV playing from the living room. It sounded like the overenthusiastic shouting of a shounen anime character; Kimiko chuckled softly to herself at the thought of her brother sitting on the couch, eyes glued to the screen, leaning forward during the intense moments and throwing his arms up with a cheer when the heroes inevitably triumphed. How did that old saying go--the more things change, the more they stay the same?

    While she was in her bedroom getting dressed, Kimiko listened through the door for the sound of him talking back to the TV the way he was so prone to do. She was surprised to be disappointed when she didn't hear him pipe up even once, even when the raucous sounds from the television suggested that the show had reached an epic climax. Maybe he'd fallen asleep? She paused, frowning, halfway through buttoning up her shirt and poked her head out the door.

    "Hiro?" she called down the hall toward the living room. "Are you alright?"

    There was no reply. Okay, so he must have fallen asleep, then. As she hastily did up the top buttons, she made a mental note to drape a blanket over him so he wouldn't get cold--and then turn in herself, because she hadn't looked at the clock recently but she was fairly sure it was creeping up on midnight.

    The lights in the living room were turned off when Kimiko walked in, but the room was illuminated with a faint blueish glow from the vibrantly flickering TV screen. Situated in the corner of the room across from the TV, a figure rested on the couch, head tilted back against the fabric of the couch and arms relaxed at their sides. He must have drifted off while watching his show. Kimiko smiled, her chest filling with a familial warmth as she stepped forward and took in the peaceful scene. It really was just like they were kids, wasn't it?

    The warmth evaporated from her as quickly as it had appeared, however, when she stepped closer and realized who the seemingly sleeping figure actually was. Ando's eyes were still open, although partially glazed over as he stared blankly at the flickering TV screen; he shut his eyes when Kimiko approached, like a kid trying to fool his parents into thinking he was really asleep as though she wouldn't be able to see the glow of a gameboy from under the covers.

    Face tightening into a frown, Kimiko marched up to him and clamped her hand down on Ando's shoulder. He flinched at the contact, opening his eyes but hastily averting his gaze.

    "Oi." She kept her voice flat but sharp as she stared him down. "Ando Nakamura-Masahashi, you've got some explaining to do."

    Ando remained quiet for a moment, avoiding her gaze. She was about to jostle him again when he reached for the remote and turned the TV off. With the room cast into silence, he finally turned to look at her, nervous eyes gleaming dimly in the dark.

    "You used the hyphenated surname," he observed, speaking quietly and with an unsure edge to his voice.

    "Of course I did," she replied, blinking at the unexpected statement. "That's what you and Hiro decided on when you got married. Who am I to go against your wishes?"

    "I know, it's just that not many people use it," he said, giving a wistful chuckle. "One of the only people who always addresses me as 'Nakamura-Masahashi-san' is the girl who works at that gaming store on the other side of town. It's one of the reasons why I keep going there even though they rarely carry the games I want."

    "Is that so? I'm sorry to hear that," Kimiko told him. She moved to sit down, and as she did so, Ando shifted to the side to give her more room. She blinked gratefully at him as she sat down, crossing one leg over the other. "Listen, I have something important to tell you, and I think--no, I  _ know _ it's going to make you very happy," she corrected herself (it had certainly made  _ her  _ happy, happier than being in her brother's presence had ever made her before she thought she'd lost him forever). "But first, I need you to explain what you've been up to."

    "I'm sorry I took so long to get over here," he said, giving her an apologetic bow like a new hire might give to a boss who they'd spilled coffee on. "Ms. Clark insisted I stay the night even though the difference in timezones meant it was day here, so I couldn't fall asleep, and by the time it was morning there it was night here and… well, you weren't around but the TV was on, so I sat down and waited for you."

    "Who is Ms. Clark?" Kimiko asked, as though that were the most confusing part of his statement.

    "Oh, right. That's Tommy's mother." He paused, shutting his eyes and bringing his hand up to massage his temples. "Tommy is, uh, Hiro's kid. Adopted, but… while Hiro was missing, he was basically raising a son, apparently. I don't know why I never told you this--I guess I didn't think it was important."

    "What?" Kimiko demanded, her gaze sharpening along with her voice. Thinking back to the day he had told her what she'd really already known for a long time--that Hiro was gone for good, or so they'd thought until now--she did vaguely recall him mentioning some American kid, but  _ Hiro's  _ kid? "And now… don't tell me you're planning to act like a stepfather to him?"

    "No, no, of course not," Ando replied with a shake of his head; he sounded amazed that anyone would come to that conclusion. Kimiko's shoulders relaxed a little at that; at least he knew his own limits. He might have made a good parent or guardian once, but he hardly even looked after himself nowadays. "Tommy is back with his mom now," he added. "She and Mr. Bennet agreed it was the safest place for him right now."

    "That's good to hear," Kimiko said. Then something clicked into place in her mind and her previously relaxed muscles tightened back up. "Wait, what about that body the police found in your apartment? Did you kill him?"

     Ando grimaced, although Kimiko couldn't tell whether it was a  _ feeling bad about killing someone  _ grimace or a  _ dreading having to face the consequences of my actions  _ grimace. She waited with bated breath for whatever justification he would give.

    "So it really was a fatal blow, huh?" he sighed after a moment. "I'm sorry, I know it was an impulsive move--maybe too impulsive. I just knew that I had to save both Tommy and myself from that guy."

    He paused, glancing at Kimiko as though gauging how she would respond. She kept her posture the same, not willing to give herself away so easily, but a spark of hope sprang up in her chest at what he said.

    "That man was a criminal, then?" she asked, fighting back the urge to lean further toward him in anticipation. "You only killed him to defend yourself?"

    Ando nodded, and at once it felt as though a weight had been lifted off her chest. She exhaled, the tension deflating from her shoulders. Whether her brother-in-law's story would hold up in court remained to be seen, but at least now she knew that he hadn't strayed onto a path any darker than that of the average crime-fighter.

    "Maybe even Tommy more so than myself, as soon as I recognized him," he added. "If I let anything happen to Hiro's kid, I…" His shoulders hunched up, and he looked away, voice dropping. "It would feel like I was letting Hiro down. Again."

    At that, Kimiko felt a sharp twist of guilt tug at her gut. She was talking to a man who still thought himself a grieving widower--so Hiro had already taken off by the time he'd gotten there. Where her brother might have gone off to was beyond her imagination, especially since he had no phone to contact him with at the moment, but it would be deceitful not to tell Ando that he had finally come back after all.

    Just as she opened her mouth to speak, however, Ando spoke up again with a tired but firm tone.

    "I can tell that there's something on your mind," he said. "But could you maybe tell me in the morning? I'm still feeling jetlagged, and I know we could both use some sleep."

    "Er… if you want, but I do have something very important…" She trailed off as a yawn sprang up in her throat; she tried and failed to bite it back. Ando gave her a vaguely bemused glance. "Well, perhaps you're right. You can sleep in my guest bedroom, though--not on the couch!"

    "Yes, Ma'am," Ando muttered. He got to his feet and shuffled off toward the hallway, pausing in the doorframe to glance at her over his shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow."

    Kimiko responded with a confident nod.  _ Yes, tomorrow _ , she thought. Whatever late-night excursion Hiro had scampered off on, he would surely be back by morning, and then Ando would see that he wasn't alone anymore--not that he had ever been alone in the first place, not really. Hiro and Ando could move back in together then, and everything could go back to the way it had been before her brother's disappearance. With that thought hanging in her mind, she followed her brother-in-law out into the hallway and headed upstairs to her bedroom.

* * *

    A chilling wind swept across the deserted beach, raising goosebumps on Hiro's skin. He shuddered, bouncing on the spot to keep his blood pumping as he waited for Ms. Liu to finish paying her respects. There was no grave at this spot, but she somehow seemed to know that this was the final resting place of another one of her American friends. Feeling the texture of shifting sand beneath his shoes and listening to the gentle crash of the waves against the shore, Hiro was almost reminded of his wedding, held on the rocky east coast of Canada. Of course, that had been during the daytime, and he had been wearing a tuxedo rather than a t-shirt and jeans borrowed from his older sister, but the comparison still held water (icy-cold salt water, to be specific). Although the view of the ocean was just as good, it was a lot colder and emptier this time around. Shifting his balance from one foot to the other, he turned to glance over his shoulder at his sister's girlfriend.

    "How many more trips after this?" he asked. "It's really late, and I'd like to go home soon. I don't want Onee-san to worry about me."

    "Actually, this is the last one," she replied, her voice muffled by the ocean breeze. "And I know Kimiko--she won't worry about you. She knows that you're an adult who can take care of yourself."

    "I know that!" Hiro said, suddenly indignant. He adjusted the pair of glasses Kimiko had lent him--a little small on him, and the outdated prescription made him dizzy at first, but it was better than blurry vision. "If someone you care about might be in trouble, you worry about them, even if they can take care of themselves."

    As he spoke, Ms. Liu got to her feet and walked over to Hiro, dusting the sand off her hands.

    "You make a decent point," she told him. "So you'll head back to your sister's house now?"

    "Yep!" he said, nodding. Then he paused, noticing the goosebumps raised on his companion’s arms. "But, um, I can take you home first. Where do you live?"

    "That's… actually a good question," she laughed, running her hands up and down her arms. "Uh, shit. Well, I guess the Togenkyo Hotel would be as good a place as any. That's where I've been staying recently."

    Hiro couldn't help but wince at that. He'd heard about that hotel, and from what he knew, it was about the crummiest place in the city. Only tourists and immigrants who couldn't afford to stay anywhere else opted for that place. Photographers must not have gotten paid very well; hopefully she would come into some money soon (maybe, he thought with a pang of excitement, she could come into money via marrying into the Nakamura family? Obviously that was up to her and Kimiko, not him, but you never knew…)

    "Alright, let's get you out of the cold," he said as he suppressed another shudder. He laid a hand on her shoulder and, with great reluctance, concentrated on the hotel.

    They appeared in a hallway with a grungy floor and questionably patterned wallpaper. Between the interior design and the musty stench in the air, it was clear they'd reached their destination. Ms. Liu gave him a grateful bow as she stepped away from him.

    "Thank you so much for all the help," she told him, her eyes glinting with what he assumed was joy--maybe the beginnings of tears. "I know it's a small thing, but it means a lot to me."

    "Anything for my sister's girlfriend--or for any civilian in need," Hiro told her, giving her a grin. "Well, then, see you later!"

    He returned her bow, then squeezed his eyes shut and teleported to the guest bedroom in his sister's house. Immediately upon leaving the hotel, he let out a long sigh of contentment, his muscles relaxing. The air in the guest room was cooler than the hotel, but when the residual coolness of the ocean air still pricked at his skin, it was perfectly warm in comparison. No light came from the crack under the door--the other lights in the house must have been turned off. Luckily there was a small window in the guest room, but that only provided a faint silvery glow. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, Hiro scanned the dimly lit room for the cupboard where Kimiko kept the spare futon. He was just barely able to make it out in the darkness; he would have to tread carefully over to the cupboard so as not to trip over anything.

    He only managed to take two steps forward before his foot brushed up against something and he tripped.

    Hiro yelped, desperately wheeling his arms to regain balance. Despite his best efforts, he fell forward and onto what seemed to be a large lump on the floor--albeit one that was warm and soft to land on, and more pertinently, one that startled awake at the sudden impact. He yelped again at the movement from beneath him, and he scrambled away, heart pounding. In his panic, his glasses slipped halfway down his face; he adjusted them with trembling hands as he sat back and stared at the shifting mass before him. It was only then that, as his eyes began adjusting to the darkness, he realized what--or rather, who--he was looking at. Immediately upon realizing, Hiro's cheeks heated up.

    "Oh…" he whispered as he stared at his husband, unmistakable even in the absence of light. Now his heart was hammering twice as hard, but now from shock and exhilaration rather than fright. "Ando?"

    "Mmn… what the hell was that?" Ando muttered, rolling over onto his side and rubbing at his eyes before blinking them open.

    He began to sit up, getting out from under the futon. No sooner did his gaze land on Hiro, however, than he froze in place.

    For a long moment he just stared, and all Hiro could do was stare back. What should he do? What could he say? His heart soared at the sight of his husband, and half his mind urged him to lunge forward and embrace him, but the other half of his mind forcefully held him back. Was this real? After everything, could it really be so easy for them to be together again? (Hiro recalled what he and Kimiko had discovered earlier, and for a moment his elation was swapped out with a chill of dread, but then he realized that if his sister was letting Ando spend the night at her place then he must not be turning into a bad guy after all.) After what felt like at least several minutes ticked by, Hiro gulped down his anxiety and opened his mouth to speak.

    "Ando, I'm sorry for being gone so long, but I--"

    He abruptly cut himself off as, in a sudden flash of movement, Ando sprung up and launched himself at Hiro.

    The wind was knocked out of Hiro as his husband tackled him into an embrace, sending him tumbling over onto his back. He lay stunned and momentarily breathless as Ando's arms engulfed him and held him close. It was the ferocity of his husband's grasp that snapped Hiro out of his trance, and he was pulled like a magnet into his warmth. He returned the hug with renewed exuberance, letting out a giddy laugh. Ando's grip only grew tighter at that, his hands clutching at Hiro's back like he was sand in danger of slipping through his fingers. Hiro's face was pressed up against his chest, and although the close proximity dug his glasses into his face, he didn't dare point out that it was uncomfortable. He just wanted to keep being held by the man he loved. And luckily for him, it didn't seem like Ando planned on letting go anytime soon.

    "Oh, Hiro," Ando murmured, his voice muffled as his lips were pressed against the crook of Hiro's shoulder. "It--it's really you?"

    "Of course it's me," Hiro replied--although he had to wriggle partway out of his husband's grip in order to speak. "Who else would I be?"

    "I… I don't…" Ando trailed off, shaking his head. Easing off his grasp on Hiro, he sat back to regard him at an arm's length. Looking up at him, with his eyes now properly adjusted to the room's darkness, Hiro spotted tears brimming in his husband's wide, questioning eyes. "How can it be you? You're supposed to be… gone."

    His voice cracked on the last word, as though he could barely manage to force it out of his mouth. A pang of regret squeezed Hiro's heart. Giving Ando a reassuring smile, he raised his hand to gently cup his cheek. Ando's skin was flushed and warm to the touch; he initially flinched at the contact but then leaned into it, resting his face against Hiro's hand as though Hiro were Atlas holding his world up. Hiro clucked his tongue with concern, rubbing his thumb over his husband's cheek to brush away a tear.

    "I'm so sorry I was gone so long," he murmured. "Were it not for the importance of the task put upon me, I never would have left you alone the way I did."

    Indeed, the guilt over his prolonged absence reignited with an awful twisting feeling in his chest as he took in Ando's ragged face. Even in the exceptionally dim light, he could make out dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was grown out so that it almost hung into his eyes. Running his hand over his face, he could even feel a bit of stubble dotting his chin. That wasn't the most alarming thing in the world, but it was a shock that Ando could even grow stubble in the first place (neither of them, with the exception of Hiro's future counterpart and a few ill-advised attempts back in college, had ever grown facial hair). His skin felt rougher, and maybe it was just the lighting or lack thereof, but his complexion seemed paler… like his health wasn't in good condition. Like he hadn't been taking good care of himself in Hiro's absence.

    "Oh, Hiro, don't apologize," Ando said, giving him a sad smile. "If you're really back--if it's really you--that's all that matters."

    "I appreciate your words," Hiro said earnestly, "But I'm not the only one who matters. Kimiko-nee-san told me you've been 'putting on a vigilante act'. What does that mean? Have you been putting yourself in danger?"

    "Ah… so Kimiko told on me, did she?" Ando sighed. He sat back, drawing his knees up to his chest and leaning his head back to gaze up at the ceiling. "Listen, Hiro, I was doing it for you. Trying to be a hero, like you always wanted. I thought you would have been proud of me--that's what I told myself, at least." He looked back at Hiro, a lingering disbelief in his gaze. Hiro leaned forward intently and straightened his glasses, hoping to look as much like himself as possible so Ando would stop asking if it was really him. "But if you've finally come back and you don't approve of my, uh, crime-fighting… then I guess I should have spent my time better."

    "But you have been helping people, haven't you?" Hiro asked, taking Ando's hand and threading their fingers together. Ando slowly nodded, although he no longer met Hiro's gaze. With his spare hand, Hiro gently tilted his chin upward to look him in the eyes. "Then you have indeed been a hero," he told him, the pride in his heart bursting into a broad smile. "Congratulations, my love."

    "R-really?" Ando asked. Although it was hard to tell, Hiro was pretty sure he was blushing, which brought him a pang of amusement.

    "Of course," he assured him. "Even if your methods are different from mine, that's not a bad thing. It just means that you're like the Batman to my Superman," he added, unable to resist the temptation of making a comic book reference.

    "Batman?" Ando echoed. "I thought I was supposed to be the sidekick."

     Hiro shook his head. Letting his eyelids flutter shut, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against his husband's. "You're so much more than that," he whispered. "You always have been."

    Then, in case his words weren't strong enough to get the message across (and because of how strongly his heart longed to do so) he cupped Ando's face in his hands and kissed him.

* * *

    As she paced up and down the driveway, Molly couldn't help but wonder what Malina and Claire were talking about. Hopefully her traveling companion had actually gotten up the nerve to confess that she was Claire's daughter by now. If not, maybe Molly would have to go back in and tell her herself. They'd come all the way there, after all, and all she had gotten for her troubles so far was a handful of regained memories she would really rather not have.

    Her most recent memory--in terms of when it had come back into her mind, not when it was from--was more disjointed than the rest. Still not pleasant by any means, but at least less visceral than the memory of putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger. It was so disjointed, in fact, that she didn't fully understand the sequence of events, but it still filled her with a cold feeling of dread. Now, as she kicked at a small stone and sent it clattering up the driveway, her mind wandered back to the scattered series of images and she tried to make sense of them.

_ Hiding behind a bed in an empty room, clutching a stuffed animal. The sound of approaching footsteps pounding down the hall outside. Men yelling and pointing guns at each other, followed by gunshots and then the sound of a body hitting the floor.  _ (Some of those men had wanted to hurt her as well, she recalled, but there was one who she knew would never harm her. He was the family she had longed to remember and meet again, wasn't he? Officer Parkman, who she was sure would always protect her?)  _ Running down a hallway next to Officer Parkman. Her heart still pounded, but she suddenly felt so much safer in his presence. The elevator was broken, but that boy was able to make it work.  _ (She had always hoped to meet that boy again someday, but somehow she got the feeling their paths had only crossed once. She couldn't even remember his name.)  _ Down the elevator, through a hallway, out the door and into the plaza. There were a lot of people there, most of whom she didn't know.  _ (She still couldn't remember who most of them were, and even if and when she got all her memories back she got the impression that she still wouldn't know them all. It was like being at a party where you and the host had no mutual acquaintances.)  _ Bright lights and loud noises. More gunshots, and then Officer Parkman was on the ground and he wasn't getting up, wasn't moving. All the people she didn't know were fighting, and she wanted to run but there was nowhere to go, so all she could do was stay to the side and pray that it would all be over soon. There was another nice man, too--a scientist.  _ (She remembered him cradling Officer Parkman in his lap and saying that everything was going to be okay, but she couldn't remember if that turned out to be true.)  _ The battle must have ended eventually, because there was a bang from up in the sky and then everything fell silent save for the distant sound of approaching sirens.  _ (The scientist's name was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't quite seem to remember it. His face, though, was etched perfectly into her mind. On the other hand, although she remembered the sight of blood staining Officer Parkman's shirt as he was loaded onto a stretcher after everything was over, she couldn't remember his face.)

    Molly came to a stop in the middle of the driveway, her foot poised to kick the rock again. The toe of her shoe hovered just above the stone as she froze in place, although her whole body was trembling and she ended up giving the rock a weak nudge forward without meaning to. Her breaths came quick and frantic, and her heart was hammering just as hard as it did in her memory. Her head was spinning, her blood running cold and sending a shiver down her spine, and yet her palms were sweating. She felt like a rabbit crouching in the grass, nose twitching in terror, and above her were the talons of a hawk about to swoop down and snatch her up. What the hawk was in this case, she couldn't be certain, but she could feel its piercing gaze on the back of her neck.

    The policeman and the scientist. They had been her family, hadn't they? Closing her eyes, trying to shut out every part of the memory except for them--silhouetting them against the explosive backdrop of chaos and panic--just for a moment, it made her breathing slow and her tensed muscles begin to relax. But what had happened to them? Why hadn't they protected her later on, when she had… when she had…?

    Or had they not been around to protect her anymore? Because now that memories were beginning to slip back into her mind, even just vague snippets of them, she had the dawning impression that she was alone in the world and that she had been for a long time.

    Upon that thought crossing her mind, her knees gave out on her and she fell forward onto the gravelly pavement of the driveway. The rock she'd been kicking dug into her knee when she fell; she let out a whimper despite barely registering the sensation.

    "N-no," she panted, her vision of the driveway swimming beneath her as tears welled up in her eyes. "No! No!"

    Swallowing hard, Molly raised a hand to wipe the tears away from her eyes.  _ No, _ she told herself firmly.  _ I'm not all alone. I can't be. _ She drew in a long, shaky breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. Then she repeated this, over and over, until gradually her breaths became less shaky and her heartbeat slowed to a more normal rate. She could still sense the invisible talons hovering just above her head, but the hawk was frozen in tableau now just as much as she was. It couldn't hurt her, at least not for the time being. She wouldn't let it hurt her.

    After one final deep breath in and out, she straightened up from her hunched-over position into a kneel with her legs folded neatly beneath her. Then she closed her eyes and summoned the image of the scientist back into her mind.  _ Where is he now? _

    An image sprang to her mind with a shocking quickness. Immediately upon seeing the man from her memory flash through her vision, alive and healthy, she sank against the pavement with relief. Not only that, but he was… he was barely a mile away from her! Molly grinned, and for a moment  her concentration wavered. Tuning herself back into his location, she could see him coming down the road, toward her, in the passenger seat of a car. And in the driver's seat--

    As soon as she saw the man sitting next to him, a previously blurred-out part of her memory clicked back into focus. She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her.  _ Officer Parkman. _ So he was alive too, and he and the scientist-- _ Professor Suresh _ , he had introduced himself, she remembered now--were together. And they were heading straight in her direction.

    Tears stung her eyes, no longer those of fear or panic but those of joy. The vision of her approaching family blurred and disappeared, but she could still feel them in the outer reaches of her mind, like an object dancing at the edge of her peripheral vision. A giddy laugh spilled from her mouth, pushed out by a rush of exhilaration. She wasn't alone after all. Her family was still out there, and they were out there looking for her right now. And they were going to find her, assuming they kept going the right way, and bring her home.

    (That  _ was  _ why they were coming towards her, right? Who else would they be coming for?)

    "Molly? Are you okay?"

    The voice of her traveling companion caught Molly off guard. With a start, she glanced up to see Malina standing in the doorway, brow pinched with concern as she gazed down at her. Claire stood behind her, her hand resting on Malina's shoulder. Molly smiled at the sight with a pang of misplaced pride. Clearly Malina had gotten her act together and told her mother who she was.

    "Don't worry, I'm fine," she replied, flashing them a smile--and she meant it. "I was scared for a moment, but now I'm going to be okay."

    "That's good," Malina said. "So, do you want to come back in? It feels like it's pretty cold out here."

    Molly nodded, grimacing at the sting of the cool air against her arms. She got to her feet and brushed off her pant legs, then strode up the driveway. As she reached the front porch, the sound of an approaching car sounded from behind her. She thought nothing of it until, rather than passing by and quickly fading back into the distance, the sound of the engine came up right behind her accompanied by the squealing of brakes as it pulled into the driveway. For a moment Molly's heart sped up in anticipation (had her family gotten there already?) but a glance over her shoulder revealed a different vehicle than the one she had seen them riding in.

    Although she didn't recognize the approaching car, the other women's reactions made it clear that they both did. Malina winced slightly and stepped back into the house, whereas Claire's eyes lit up with enthusiasm and she stepped forward. Molly hurried up the porch steps and ducked inside, hanging back next to Malina as the car crawled to a stop and the door swung open.

    "Who's that?" Molly asked when a middle-aged man with horn-rimmed glasses stepped out of the car. Something about the sight of him made her gut clench, but she wasn't sure why.

    "That's Claire's dad, Noah," Malina told her, leaning over and speaking in a whisper. "I was talking on the phone with him the other day, remember? He told us to stay put, but… well…"

    "Oh, that's him?" Molly whispered back. Glancing back at Noah, a shudder ran down her spine. "He's… kind of scarier than I expected."

    "C'mon," Malina muttered with a tug on Molly's arm. "Let's get out of his line of sight. I don't want him to yell at me."

    The last thing Molly saw of what was happening outside before Malina shut the door was Claire running down the driveway toward her father, and the way he flinched upon seeing her advance.

* * *

    "Dad!" Claire exclaimed as she closed the distance between herself and Noah. Her exhilaration seemed to propel her forward, down the driveway and into his arms with a leap. He stumbled backwards at the contact, letting out a gasp, but quickly regained his footing. He stood still for a moment as she clung to him, arms wrapped around his shoulders such that her feet were practically dangling off the ground; after a moment he brought a hand up and laid it on the back of her head.

    "…Claire," he said with an unusual vacancy to his voice. "You're really…?

    She nodded, grinning tearfully against the fabric of his suit jacket. Despite all her talk about how she wasn't a kid anymore, being in her father's presence suddenly made her feel like a little girl again. She only wished that he didn't hold himself so stiffly--even his hand on her hair felt almost closer to a clamp holding her in place--but she understood that he must have been pretty taken aback, so she would give him time. However he acted, he was finally  _ there _ , and that was all that mattered.

    She held him like that for a few moments more, holding out hope that he would properly return the hug. However, seconds ticked by and he eventually retracted his hand and shifted slightly away from her. Claire pulled away with much reluctance, trying to hide her disappointment; her hand lingered for a moment on the sleeve of his jacket before she let it drop away and folded her hands behind her back. Stepping back and looking up at her father, his expression was just as stiff as his body language; sunlight glinted off his glasses and obscured his eyes. Even so, he appeared to be smiling, and even if it was just put on for her sake she appreciated it.

    "Does your mother know that you--" He paused, glancing up at the house and then back at her. "That you've come back?"

    "Oh, yeah, we've been trying to call you for a couple of days now," she told him. "Mom is out right now, and Lyle's gone back to his own place, but they both know."

    Noah's tensed shoulders appeared to relax ever-so-slightly upon her mentioning that her mother and brother were absent. He gave a nod of acknowledgement but said nothing. Claire's brows knit together at his odd reaction. She understood that it must have been a lot to take in, but he was acting really weird. Still, she did her best to shrug it off and continued smiling up at him as though nothing were bothering her.

    Then Noah's gaze landed on Malina's car parked in the driveway in front of his own. Through the glint in his glasses, she saw his eyes momentarily widen and then narrow. When he turned back to her, his jaw was clenched and his voice came out sharp.

    "Malina is here?"

    As much as her dad's odd behaviour rubbed her the wrong way, the mention of her daughter reignited her earlier blaze of excitement. Despite all the evidence pointing to it--the name, the car that used to be hers, their similar appearances--Claire could still hardly believe that the young woman she had met that day was really her daughter. It just felt so surreal.

    "You know, it's weird," she said. "I already knew that my kids were older than they should have been thanks to time travel, but it still feels like they should be so much younger."

    Noah slowly nodded, but Claire realized that he was looking right past her and at the door. A glance over her shoulder revealed that the door was closed--Malina must have gone back inside along with Molly. While she was looking away, Noah laid a hand on her shoulder; startled, she looked back at him. Although his grip still felt a little stiff and robotic, and his expression was strained, he was finally smiling.

    "I'm sorry for acting so strangely," he told her. "It's a lot to take in, having you back all of a sudden."

    Giving him a soft smile, Claire leaned forward and hugged him again, less forceful this time but with just as much contentment at the feeling of his sturdy frame against hers. After a moment, he wrapped his arm around her back and held her close against him.

    "It's okay, Dad," she murmured. "I get it. It hasn't been that easy for me either--getting used to living again."

    Noah was silent for a moment apart from the soft rustle of his jacket sleeves. Then, tightening his arm around her as though to hold her in place: "I love you, Claire-bear."

    "I love you too, Dad." She closed her eyes, leaning into her father's embrace.

    Were it not for the tremble of his hand, she might not have felt the brush of cold metal against the side of her head until it was too late.

    Letting out a yelp, she ducked out of the way just as a bullet whizzed over her head. She landed on her knees, then rolled over onto her side to avoid a second gunshot that sent a spray of gravel flying up at her. She scrambled to her feet, mind racing, and stood frozen in place staring down her father's glare and the barrel of his gun.

    "What the hell!?" she cried. "What do you think you're doing?"

    "I don't know what game you're trying to play with me," he said in a voice dripping with malice. Keeping the gun trained towards her, he took a step forward. "But I'm not letting you win. And you're not going to lay a finger on my family!"

    "What are you saying?" she demanded. She wanted to cry, or to run away from him as fast as she could, but all she could do was stand there and stare as he advanced toward her. "I  _ am  _ your family!"

    "Damn right you are," he snarled, curling his finger around the trigger.

    This time Claire could anticipate the gunshot, although the blast of it being fired still made her ears ring. She swerved out of the way, then turned on her heel and sprinted back up the driveway. The front porch was just a few steps away--four, three, two, one… Another shot rang out from behind her. Her left foot came down hard on the first step, and she propelled herself up past the second step and to the top of the stairs. Her right foot landed solid and secure on the front porch. In the same instant, it felt like a bomb went off in her left knee.

    Shrieking, Claire fell forward against the door. She caught herself on the doorknob while her left leg dangled behind her, exploding with pain that made stars dance across her vision. When she tried to turn the knob, it didn't budge. Malina must have locked the door behind her.  _ Shit _ . Face contorting with agony, she dragged herself upright using her good leg. Then, leaning against the railing, she pounded against the door with the same frantic urgency as her heart against her ribcage.

    "Malina!" she shouted as hard as her short-on-breath lungs could manage. "Help me! Let me in!"

    "Don't you dare!" Noah snapped.

    Claire flinched, expecting another shot, but thankfully it didn't come. When she glanced back at her father, she saw that he was still pointing the gun at her, his lips pulled back in a grimace. However, he seemed just as scared as he was angry, if not more so.

    "Don't you  _ dare _ put her in danger," he continued. "Get away from that door right now!"

    Now she could hear the sharp edge of fear in his voice, and despite the silver glint of the gun in his hands, a pang of sympathy stung at her heart. She didn't understand what misunderstanding he had come to or why, but clearly he was under the impression that she wasn't who she claimed to be and that she posed a risk to his surviving family. Even so, the sympathy wasn't enough to outweigh the blinding pain where the bullet was embedded in her knee, nor the cold terror that stirred in the pit of her gut at the sight of that gun. She pounded on the door again, slamming her fists against the wood hard enough to make it splinter.

    "Malina, can you hear me? Let me in!"

    She could scarcely hear her daughter's approaching footsteps over the blood rushing in her ears, but a moment later the door was thrown open and she was met with the sight of Malina's wide-eyed, anxious gaze.

    "What's the matter--er, Mom?" she asked. Her gaze landed on Noah and she shrunk back, letting out a gasp. "What's happening? Is he…?"

    "Get away from her, Malina," Noah said. "That's not your mother."

    "Yes, it is," Claire shot back. "That's what I've been trying to tell you! Why won't you believe me?"

    Even as she addressed her father with as much fierceness as she could muster, her body shook with the pain from her injured leg (she didn't dare to look down at it and see the state it was in; the pain was already enough to make her head swim, and if she looked at it she was sure she would pass out or throw up or both). Her grip on the railing gave out, but Malina caught her by the shoulders and held her upright.

    "Yeah, seriously," Malina addressed Noah. "I get that she isn't supposed to be alive anymore, but neither is Molly, and you believed me about her! You… did believe me about her, right?" she added, her grip on Claire tightening.

    "I did. Or I thought I did. Maybe that was a mistake," Noah replied. "I don't know what to believe anymore. But I do know that I trust Angela's visions."

    With that, he cocked his gun and pressed his finger against the trigger. However, before he could fire another shot, Malina moved to stand in front of Claire. Hissing out a string of curses, Noah released the trigger before he could fire and lowered the gun--although he kept the safety off.

    "Normally I'd trust Angela too, but you're taking this way too far," Malina said. "Just put the gun away, okay? Please!"

    While her daughter spoke, Claire leaned back against the doorframe and tried to catch her breath. Despite the circumstances, a great pride bloomed in her chest at the sight of Malina being so fearless. Even without Claire being there to raise her twins, they had clearly turned out alright--or at least her daughter had. She didn't yet have a point of reference for how her son had turned out, but from what she'd been told about his upbringing, she had to assume he had grown up to be heroic as well.  _ More heroic than I feel right now, anyway _ , she thought, grimacing as another shock of pain shot up her leg. She still couldn't bring herself to look down at her injured knee, but she could see a lot of red in the bottom of her peripheral vision, and there was a distinctive coppery scent in the air.  _ God, it sucks not having healing powers _ .

    All the while, Noah kept advancing towards them. When he reached the bottom of the front steps he paused, lowering his gun slightly so that it wasn't pointed directly at her anymore, but his glare didn't change. Gulping, Malina took a step backward, looping an arm around Claire and gently guiding her into the house. Planting her right foot down on the tiled floor of the front hallway felt to her like crossing the finish line of a race. She sighed with relief, slumping against her daughter's supportive hold, and let her eyes flutter closed for just a moment.

    The tremendous  _ bang _ of the gun startled her back to attention no more than a second later. Claire flinched and stumbled backward as a bullet found its mark in the wood of the doorframe. Malina let out a yelp, scrambling back into the house and moving to close the door behind her. She was a little too slow, however, as Noah managed to grab the door before she could get it shut. With nothing to catch herself on this time, Claire fell and landed on her back on the floor; although the landing momentarily knocked the wind out of her, she wasted no time in scrambling to get away as Noah wrestled against Malina to pry the door open.

    Across the room, Molly stood at the bottom of the stairs, wide-eyed and seemingly frozen in place. Malina looked toward her, away from the door, and shouted to her.

    "Molly, get upstairs! Hide!"

    At first she didn't move, aside from flinching at Malina's shout. Then, in the moment when Malina was looking away, Noah overpowered her and forced the door open. With that, Molly let out a whimper and turned to run upstairs. Noah pushed past Malina and stepped through the door; he slammed it shut behind him just as a car roared by outside.

    Claire pushed herself into a sitting position as her father walked over to her, regarding her much the same way one would regard a cockroach before crushing it. At the same time, Malina rushed to her side, saying something about helping her to her feet. Claire didn't quite process it, because her attention was fixed on the way Noah's glasses flashed, obscuring his eyes, as he pointed the gun at her head. She made no move to get up or run away, not because she wanted to give up and resign herself to her fate, but because all she could do was stare down the barrel of his gun like it was a hypnotist's pendulum.

    "Holy shit," she muttered. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?"

    "I've had a fair share of people try to kill me in my life," he told her. "But nobody gets away with defiling my daughter's memory."

    He pressed his finger down on the trigger.

* * *

    "I've got a really bad feeling about this," Matt muttered as he rounded a street corner.

    "That makes two of us," Mohinder said. He didn't take his eyes off the road ahead of him; leaning forward, he narrowed his eyes and peered through the window down the street. "Do you see Noah's car parked anywhere?"

    "Uh, no, don't think so," Matt replied. "This must not be the right street either. Let's keep looking."

    Mohinder nodded in agreement, although he didn't know whether his companion would see the movement when his eyes were on the road. Tightening the hand of his uninjured arm into a fist at his side, he mentally replayed the conversation he'd had with Matt after their encounter with Noah.

    "Well," he had said as they watched Noah’s car speed away through the fog, "That was certainly unexpected."

    "Damn right it was," Matt had responded; Mohinder had been startled by how dark his tone was. Upon receiving an incredulous look, he had explained: "I read Noah's mind as he was rolling his window up. I think he's got the wrong idea somehow about Claire."

    "How so?" Mohinder had inquired, raising his eyebrows.

    "Well, he was thinking about how he might need to put his gun to use after all," Matt had said with a grimace. "It was a pretty big jumble of thoughts, but if I got one major takeaway from it… he's planning to get violent."

    Now, as they drove down yet another street with no luck, Mohinder tried with little success to quell the anxiety stirring in his gut. If they didn't get there in time to stop him, Noah was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, and that was no small statement considering some of the darker parts of his past. And the consequences for such a mistake would be dire not just for Noah and Claire, but for their entire family.

    "Wait, I see his car!"

    Matt's voice snapped Mohinder back into the present. He followed his partner's gaze to a house with two cars parked in the driveway--sure enough, the one parked further down the driveway was Noah's. The front door was slamming shut just as they pulled up outside; Mohinder glimpsed a flash of Noah's tan suit jacket disappearing into the house. After turning the car's ignition off, Matt turned to face Mohinder, giving him a meaningful look. He said nothing, nor did he telepathically project words into Mohinder's head, but he understood the message anyway.  _ You can stay in the car if you want to, you know _ . But perhaps the reason Matt didn't bother to say it aloud was because he already knew what Mohinder's answer would be.

    "My enhanced strength and agility may come in handy," he said. "Besides, you know I couldn't stand to see you rush in alone and wind up getting injured."

    Matt nodded, and as each of them undid their seatbelts and opened their car doors, Mohinder felt their hands brush together. He wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, but the warmth of Matt's hand lingered against his own long enough that it didn't feel accidental. Then they jumped out of the car, and Mohinder fixed his attention on the house and what was happening inside it; his companion following his lead as he ran up the driveway and to the front door was only in his peripheral.

    The coppery scent of blood was fresh and crisp in the air as he reached the doorway. He felt something sticky beneath his foot, and when he glanced down he found that blood was splattered across the front steps. Not copious amounts of blood--not a deadly amount--but definitely more than a papercut or two. Swallowing hard, he gripped the door by its handle and wrenched it open.

    "Noah, don't--!"

    A  _ bang _ rang out in time with his entrance, nearly drowned out by a young woman's shriek. In that instant, a tableau fell upon his eyes: Noah standing with his back to the doorway, a smoking gun in his hands; Claire sitting on the floor staring back at him, her left leg half-severed at the knee and dripping with blood; crouching next to her, another young woman who Mohinder didn't immediately recognize, but looking between her and Claire, he realized she must have been Malina. He also realized that Malina was the one shrieking in that split-second in which the bullet bore down upon them, whereas Claire simply stayed in place and didn't look away from her father. She didn't even flinch.

    Well, she didn't until the last moment, at least.

    But although that tableau seemed to stretch on for an eternity, nobody was around at the moment who could actually alter time. Mohinder's momentum carried him forward through the door and he slammed into Noah, knocking him off his feet. He didn't see where the bullet found its mark as he tackled Noah to the floor, but the thump of their landing was accompanied by the softer thump of someone else hitting the floor at approximately the same time. The room lapsed into silence. His gut clenched with an icy dread, and he closed his eyes, unable to bring himself to look up. Noah's frame was tense beneath his, but he was met with no resistance from the former Company man. It was over, wasn't it? He had gotten there a moment too late.

    Then, just as quickly, Matt burst through the door behind him. Mohinder flinched at the sound of his entrance, half-expecting another gun to go off. Instead, Matt ran forward, deftly sidestepping where Mohinder had Noah pinned down. Cautiously, Mohinder looked up to see Matt drop into a kneeling position before the two young women laying one atop the other on the floor.

    "Shit," he hissed. "Are you both alright?"

    From his vantage point, Mohinder couldn't see everything, but he could see enough. Malina was laying atop Claire, and neither of them were noticeably moving, although it at least looked like both of them were breathing--indeed, Claire seemed more winded and stunned than anything else. He let go of Noah and got to his feet, holding in a breath as he waited for a response to Matt's question.

    "I…" Claire panted, her gaze flickering between the different people in the room. "I think I'm okay. Aside from, y'know."

    "Your knee?" Mohinder and Matt spoke almost in unison. They exchanged a glance, and despite the circumstances, Mohinder felt a momentary pang of amusement. It faded immediately, however, when he came over closer and knelt down next to Matt.

    Her injury looked even worse up close. Mohinder grimaced at the sight of the bullet embedded within a nest of torn ligaments. Although he didn't dare say so aloud, it wouldn't surprise him if an amputation was in order. But even worse, the younger woman laying atop her…

    A dark red colour was slowly spreading across Malina's back, radiating out from just beside her shoulder blade and soaking through her shirt. Pressing his fingers against the side of her neck yielded a fairly steady pulse, but her body rested limp and unmoving atop her mother's, and her breathing was faint enough that it was barely detectable. 

    "Malina? Are you okay?" Claire asked; the sharp edge of fear in her voice hit like a blade to the heart. She placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder as though to jostle her, then sucked in a gasp as her fingers brushed against blood. "Oh, shit. Malina?"

    "She's alive," Mohinder assured her. "But she's unconscious. It looks like she took the bullet for you."

    "We need to get them both to a hospital," Matt said. He turned to look over his shoulder. "Noah, call an ambulance, now!"

    Following his partner's gaze, Mohinder was startled to see Noah still laying on the floor, staring ahead at them with a blank expression. His hand was still curled tightly around his gun; his grip tightened when Matt addressed him, but otherwise he didn't make a move.

    "Goddamnit," Matt muttered. "I'll make the call, then. Mohinder, you handle Noah, okay?"

    "Of course," Mohinder replied, although he wasn't sure exactly how to deal with such a situation.

    While Matt hurried across the room to where a landline phone sat atop a computer desk, he walked over to Noah and stood over him. Noah lowered his gaze upon being approached, shrinking into himself in a manner most unlike him. Unsure of what to say, Mohinder cleared his throat and crossed his arms. Before he could say anything, though, Noah spoke up.

    "It's really her, isn't it?"

    He didn't need to say a name; it was obvious who he meant. Mohinder nodded grimly.

    "And I--" Noah curled his empty hand into a fist, while his other hand still didn't release his gun. "I shot her."

    "I'm afraid so," Mohinder said. "It was a terrible mistake on your part, and I won't try to tell you otherwise. Claire and her daughter are both badly wounded thanks to your actions. But they are both alive."

_ At least for the time being _ , he thought, suppressing a grimace at the thought of Malina's injury. With any luck she would pull through without complication, but depending on exactly where the bullet had lodged itself, things might not go so well for her. He couldn't say that to Noah, though, not when he was already so blatantly wracked with the guilt of a realization made moments too late.

    "They're alive thanks to you and Parkman," Noah said. "Tha--" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "No, it's not enough to just thank you. You--you should just… fuck, maybe you should just take this gun and put me in my place."

    "Matthew and I had little to do with the outcome," Mohinder said. (He ignored Noah's latter remark; he knew that he likely didn't mean what he was saying. At least, he certainly  _ hoped  _ he didn't mean it.) "You had already fired the gun by the time I tackled you to the floor. And besides…" He gave a pointed glance to Noah's hand, gripping his gun--finger still pressed against the trigger, but doing nothing. "Even if you had tried to shoot her again, I believe you're out of bullets."

    Noah didn't respond to that, but he followed Mohinder's gaze to the gun in his hand with the same blank expression. Propping himself halfway up into a sitting position, he raised the gun and examined it. After a moment, his shoulders slumped, and he let out a short sigh followed by a wry chuckle.

    "I believe you're right," he said. "Shit. That, uh, that sure shows me."

    Then, finally raising his head--not to make eye contact, but looking past Mohinder to where his daughter and granddaughter lay bleeding--he let the gun drop from his grasp and clatter against the hardwood floor. He raised a shaky hand to his face and removed his glasses. Without the glint of his lenses obscuring his eyes, Mohinder was unsurprised to see that he was crying. With a prickle of shame at watching what he felt he shouldn't, he averted his gaze. On the other side of the room, Matt was just hanging up the phone. Meanwhile, Claire was sitting up now, holding her unconscious daughter in her arms.

    "The ambulance should be here in a few minutes," Matt said as he walked over to Mohinder and Noah. "Do you think they're going to…?"

    "To survive? Yes, I do," Mohinder replied. Then, placing his hand on Matt's shoulder, he leaned toward him and dropped his voice so that Noah couldn't hear. "At the very least, Claire should survive, although the bottom half of her leg will likely have to be amputated. As for her daughter, I'm afraid to say there's no guarantee."

     "Shit," Matt muttered. He looked back at the wounded young women, then at Noah, then back at Mohinder. "…Let's step outside."

    Mohinder nodded. He dropped his hand away from Matt's shoulder and they headed toward the door, not wanting to encroach on an unwanted boundary. However, once they stepped outside into the cool and somber autumn air, he was surprised to feel his partner's hand reaching out for his. He was only slightly less surprised to reach back and take it.

* * *

    The hotel room was just as crummy as ever, but it beat standing out in the cold. Although Ji Woo's mind was buzzing with too much excitement for her to sleep, she huddled up in bed nonetheless, Kimiko's accidentally stolen suit jacket wrapped snugly around her. Grinning up at the ceiling like an idiot, she tapped her feet against the mattress as an outlet for the thrill of victory coursing through her. She could hardly believe she'd really pulled it off without help from a supercharger  _ or  _ from Bruce. Hell, it made her wish she had just taken matters into her own hands years ago instead of going along with her partner's overly complicated scheme for so long.

    "You hear that, O'Brien?" she spoke aloud, projecting her voice to a spot where the texture of the ceiling's off-white paint almost resembled a face and imagining it as her coworker sneering down at her. "I did it by myself! I didn't need your help at all, asshole!"

    A spike of harsh, giddy laughter bubbled up inside her and came pouring out along with her words. She felt drunk on success. And even as she lay on her back, cackling, she knew that was probably kind of sad.

    Eventually she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, she was being startled awake by a knock at the door. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and squinting against the darkness. Who the hell would be showing up at her hotel room in the middle of the night?

    "Who's there?" she demanded, drawing her knees up to her chest as she heard the floorboards creak. She could see a figure shifting towards her, but who was it? "H-hey, answer me!"

    "Now, now, no need to get in a tizzy." The familiar voice sent a shiver down her spine. "It's just me."

    The lightswitch flicked on with a click, bathing the room in a flickering fluorescent light that was simultaneously too bright and too dull--and illuminating the face of the man standing in her doorway. Ji Woo gasped, her body going rigid at the sight of him. There was no mistaking it: that was Bruce. And aside from soot on the front of his now-tattered shirt, there wasn't a scratch on him.

    "Y-you… you're…" she stammered. Bruce smirked, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed like he was chatting with his friends at a barbecue. His casual mannerisms ignited a spark of anger that broke through the paralysis of shock, and she leaned forward, jabbing an accusatory finger at him. "You died, didn't you? If you didn't die, then what the hell were you doing? Where have you been?! I was worried about you, idiot!"

    He stepped towards her, still smirking--or was that supposed to be a genuine smile? She laughed at that notion, but it came out more high-pitched and nervous than intended.

    "Of course you worried," he said, eyes crinkling as he stared her down. "I'm sorry, by the way. You were right; even now, I can't seem to go ten minutes without biting the dust."

    "So you did die?" she asked; Bruce nodded without the slightest change in his expression. Ji Woo narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "No, that can't be right. I didn't resurrect you, I went right over to Kimiko's to--" She promptly cut herself off at that. Bruce raised his eyebrows, that smarmy smirk finally dropping away. "Er, to capture the supercharger, since he was at her house."

    "Right, sure, that's why you went over," he drawled. "But, listen, Woo-woo…" He clamped a hand down on her shoulder. She flinched at the contact, heart spiking with panic, but he just tilted his head and grinned at her. "You ought not to underestimate the strength of our bond. Of course you resurrected me. What kind of friends would we be if you didn't?"

    "Work friends, idiot!" she snapped. "Like what we  _ are _ ! I didn't fucking bring you back to life, so stop dicking around and tell me how you  _ actually  _ got back here!"

    "Aw, Woo-woo," Bruce chuckled. Widening his eyes in mock offense, he clasped a hand over his chest. "How you wound me with your words. Here, maybe this will jog your memory."

    In a stunningly nimble gesture, he released his grip on her shoulder and flicked his fingers against her forehead. Her head jerked backwards at the contact, and she fell back against the wall. For a moment, her vision swam in front of her, and then there was a fizzling sensation in her mind like a scrambled radio signal clearing up and everything sharpened back into focus.

_ That's right, _ she thought, her stomach twisting as she remembered what had actually happened.  _ I took the train across town to the morgue before going to Kimiko's. I walked in claiming to be a distant relative, wanting to check Bruce's body to see if it was really him. And when they pulled back the sheet, I shoved the mortician aside and… well, I brought him back. _

    "Oh, what the hell, O'Brien?" she demanded. "Why would you make me forget that? And where were you while I was going over to Kimiko's?"

    No sooner than that question left her mouth than her partner's coy smile told her everything she needed to know. The realization struck her like a knife to the gut. Of course: he had followed her over, hanging back so she wouldn't notice him, and spied on her.

    "Capturing the supercharger, were you?" Bruce clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Why do you feel the need to lie to me? You know I won't hold it against you that you fell in love with Kimiko. Who could blame you, with a lady that pretty?" He pressed his palm against Ji Woo's cheek. She shuddered, recoiling from the touch, which prompted him to chuckle. "Aw, no need to be skittish. We can try again tomorrow, eh?"

    "Try again?" Ji Woo echoed, narrowing her eyes. "What do you… oh."

_ Oh. Of course. _ This time, the realization made her want to laugh in her coworker's face. He had watched her show up at Kimiko's house, but of course he hadn't seen what had happened next. He had no idea that she had already put the plan into action without needing his help at all.

    "Hate to break it to you, O'Brien," she sneered, "But this big plan we've been building up to all this time? I already did it without you. It's done."

    Now it was Bruce's turn to stare incredulously at her. The sight of his brows furrowing as he tried to puzzle out what she meant brought her a rush of delight. After a moment, he pulled back, dropping his hand away from her face and curling it into a fist.

    "You're not kidding," he said, keeping that same patronizing smile plastered on his face even though it was easy to hear the glower behind it. "How'd you pull that one off, eh?"

    "Well, I couldn't do it at as large a scale as we had planned," she admitted. "And because it was last-minute, I wasn't able to dig them up without arousing suspicion. Without making direct contact, I don't think they'll be brought back all the way--you know, mentally speaking." She twirled her fingers in a vague gesture at her head. "But that means the orders I gave them will be the only things going on in those rotted skulls of theirs. So in that way, it's easier."

    "And what orders were those?"

    "To hunt down and destroy the last people who were on their minds as they died," she explained. Taking advantage of being the one in control, she shifted into a cross-legged position and patted the side of the bed next to her. Bruce complied and sat down there, holding her gaze with intent. "Since they all died violently, the last people on their minds would of course be their murderers. And since they all had powerful abilities, those murderers should mostly be the kinds of people we're looking to take down."

    She left out the part about who had teleported her from site to site. Somehow she got the feeling that if Bruce learned Hiro was alive, he wouldn't let it stay that way for long. And she wasn't about to let Kimiko lose her brother again after just getting him back. (Besides, from her brief interactions with him, she kind of liked Hiro. He seemed like a sweet guy. Cooperative, too; he hadn't caught on to anything suspicious even when they had visited the cemetery in the town he had died in.)

    For a moment Bruce just kept staring at her, his expression unreadable. Then, breaking into a genuine smile this time, he laughed and clapped her on the shoulder.

    "What can I say, Woo-woo?" he asked with a fond shake of his head. "You never cease to amaze me."

    "Hey," Ji Woo said sharply. She grabbed his hand and pried it off of her shoulder. "Hands off, O'Brien. Don't push your luck."

    Even as she fixed him with a glare, though, her heart swelled with pride at his compliment; her stern expression quickly gave way to a grin. She couldn't promise she would keep bringing him back if he kept dying so often, but… well, maybe her partner wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

    The muffled sound of a gunshot from downstairs echoed in Molly's ears as though it had gone off right next to her as she crouched, trembling, in the bedroom closet. Her heart pounded hard enough that she was sure the man downstairs would hear it. Whimpering, she pulled her knees tighter against her chest, trying to shrink down as small as possible. Tears stung at her eyes, wrenched shut against the darkness, and… she was pretty sure the expression was "a lump in her throat", but it felt more like a mass of spikes.

    She couldn't hear what was going on downstairs. She didn't want to know, didn't want to think about what was happening and why the house had gone so quiet after the gunshot and the screaming. Images flashed through her mind from a time many years ago. (She knew it was from many years ago because she felt so much smaller in the memory. Helpless, sure, but at least it was easier to hide. It wasn't like her body was so much stronger now--just more cumbersome.)

_ Gunshots. Blood. The sound of screaming from outside, muffled but still all too audible. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from being heard, but she couldn't stop herself from crying no matter how hard she tried. She knew what was happening out there. It was cold and dark and cramped where she was, but at least she was alive. When the screams gave way to silence, she knew she was alone in that regard. _

_     Everyone else was gone. Either she was all alone now, or she was alone with the killer. _

    A sudden noise cut through the air and snapped her out of her memories. It was loud, harsh, trilling--and worse, it was  _ close _ . Molly flinched, anticipating the sound of running and gunshots at any second. It was only when the sound repeated that she realized what it was: a ringing phone.

    For a moment her body sank with relief, but she tensed up again just as quickly as the ringing continued. If the killer was still there, he would hear the phone ringing. And then he would come upstairs and into the bedroom and he'd find her there and--

    She had to stop the ringing. But the only way to do that was… Molly swallowed hard as she opened her eyes and looked up at the closet door. She waited a few more seconds for the ringing to stop, but it kept going on. She  _ had  _ to stop it. She could go fast, darting over to the phone to pick it up before hanging back up and hiding again. Her body was weak and small, but it was nimble. She could make it. She had to make it. Even if she was dooming herself either way, she didn't want to just sit there cowering when the killer kicked down the door and shot her.

    With that thought, she grabbed the door handle and twisted it, pushing the door open. She tumbled out of her cramped hiding space and into the bedroom, where she realized with a wince that she had left the light on in her initial scramble to hide at Malina's command. The phone was on the ground next to the answering machine, in the opposite corner of the room several feet away. Sucking in a breath, Molly planted one foot firmly in front of the other and prepared to run.

    For all her hesitation, once she propelled herself forward and took off, she crossed the room in an instant. Dropping to her knees beside the answering machine, she lifted the phone off the hook and silenced its ringing. She heaved a sigh of relief at the cessation of the noise. Before she could hang it back up, however, the voice coming from the other end caught her attention.

    "Finally you pick up!" The urgent voice of an elderly woman rang through the earpiece. Curious, Molly lifted the phone to her ear against her better judgment. "Noah, if this is you, I've made a huge mistake. I know what I told you before about a shapeshifter, but that isn't--" The woman cut herself off, lapsing into silence for a moment so that the only sound was Molly's breath crackling against the mouthpiece. "Hold on, who is this?"

   "I--" Molly hesitated, unsure of what to say. She didn't recognize this woman's voice at 

all--who was it? "I'm not Noah."

    "I'd say not, with that voice," the old woman replied; Molly could hear the confusion in her tone. "You're not… you're not Claire, are you? You sound different. So who are you?"

    Oh, of course. This lady was someone who knew the Bennets. Molly suppressed a whimper as she glanced at the bedroom door, half-expecting it to burst open at any moment, or to be decimated by a flurry of bullets cutting through the wood.

    "Well, whoever you are, listen to me," the woman went on sharply. "Several nights ago I had a vision that led me to believe a shapeshifter was planning to kill my friend Noah by disguising themself as his late daughter. However, I now understand that I interpreted the vision wrong. It's really his daughter, and unless someone stops him, he's going to come to this house with the intent to kill her. Don't let that happen!"

    While she sat there and listened to the old woman's warning, a fresh wave of tears welled up in Molly's eyes. She didn't understand everything the woman was saying, but she understood one thing. It was too late for the warning to do any good. That gunshot had already gone off, and now the house was quiet and empty and she didn't dare to leave the room or look downstairs for fear of seeing blood and gore strewn across the floor.

    "They're… they're gone," she said, her voice quivering. "It's too late."

    With that, she broke down in tears, a low wail escaping through her gritted teeth. Through the phone, she heard the old woman saying "Who's gone? What do you mean?" and other questions in an increasingly frightened tone, but she couldn't bring herself to reply. She couldn't even manage to speak through her tears. The phone slipped out of her trembling grasp and landed on the floor with a clatter. She followed its trajectory, sinking to her knees and clasping her head in her hands. It was over. Everything was over, even though it had barely begun again. If only she had never remembered who she was, she could have lived a decent life as "Moira" or "Parker" or any other invented identity. Anyone other than who she really was.

    She didn't hear the approaching footsteps from outside the door until the door was already swinging open, and it was too late to avoid the person stepping through it. Shuddering, she hunched over, burying her head between her knees. She could only hope that it would be over quickly.

    "Molly?!"

    The incredulous voice coming from behind her made her flinch, letting out a pathetic sob. At the same time, though, it triggered something in the back of her mind. Her tensed muscles relaxed, and she cautiously raised her head and turned to look behind her. There, standing in the doorframe hand in hand, were the two men she had so desperately longed to see.

    "O-Officer Parkman…? Professor Suresh?"

    She blinked, vision blurry from her tears, at them. She wasn't seeing things, was she? Then, as Professor Suresh dropped his hand away from Officer Parkman's and they moved almost in unison toward her, another flash of memory appeared in her mind.  _ Rising home from school in the backseat of an SUV, chatting excitedly with the men in the front seats. Scrunching up her nose with a suppressed giggle as they exchanged fond glances at each other. Hopping out of the car and heading into the apartment complex they called home, walking between them with one of their hands in each of hers.  _ Looking at them now, she mouthed the first names that she had quickly come to know them by in their time together.  _ Matt and Mohinder. The only people I can trust to keep me safe no matter what. _

    Before she could fully process what was happening, her bursting heart tugged her like a magnet toward them. She leapt to her feet and intercepted Matt, crashing into his embrace with enough force to send him stumbling backwards for a second. Before even regaining his balance, his arms were wrapped firmly around her, pulling her in close to his chest; she buried her face in the billows of his jacket, letting out a choked sob. A moment later, Mohinder's arms wrapped around her from behind. She shifted her position so she could clutch at both of them, holding them fast to herself as though they would break away otherwise, but she knew instinctively that they didn't want to let go of her any more than she did them. She was safe now, with the warmth of her protectors--her family--enveloping her like a warm blanket.

    "Oh, Molly…" Mohinder murmured, with a tremble in his voice matched by the motion of his hand as he lifted it to cup her face. "Noah told us that you were… that you were here, but… I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to believe it."

    "What are you doing here?" Matt asked, pulling back slightly so he could look Molly in the eye while maintaining a steady grip on her shoulders. "Are you alright?"

    Molly shook her head, unable to keep the tears from pouring out of her even now that she knew the danger was past. At the same time, though, she couldn't stop herself from grinning at the familiar face in front of her.

    "I--I'm not really okay at all," she admitted. "But now that you're here, I think I might be."

    "I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner," Matt told her. He pulled her in close again, with one arm around her back and his other hand clutching the back of her head. "But just like you said, we're here now. It's gonna be okay."

    Murmuring his agreement, Mohinder pressed a kiss to the top of Molly's head. Then, leaving Matt to hold and comfort her, he pulled away and turned his attention to the phone lying on the floor. The line had gone silent now--that old woman must have hung up. A prickle of guilt wormed through Molly's skin as she looked down at the now-dormant landline. Although she still didn't know what that woman had been calling about exactly, she was pretty sure that in her moment of despair she had essentially told her that her family was dead. And judging by the fact that Matt and Mohinder had gotten safely into the house and up to the bedroom, she was now cautiously optimistic that that wasn't true at all.

    Mohinder bent down and picked up the phone, then pressed the redial button on the answering machine. The phone didn't even get the chance to ring once before the same old woman picked up and said something Molly couldn't make out in an urgent tone. Mohinder glanced at Molly, raising his eyebrows; Molly shot him a sheepish look and ducked her head out of view.

    "Yes, that was Molly… I know, I was amazed too," he addressed the woman on the phone. "Mm-hmm. No, he already showed up and… yes, I’m afraid so. She's alive, but both she and her daughter were injured…  What? Oh, that's right. Young Malina happened to be there at the time, and she took a bullet for her mother. They're en route to a hospital as we speak… I can't say for certain, but it does look fairly serious. I'm sorry I couldn't have better news for you, Mrs. Petrelli, but I believe both young women will survive. Until next time, then."

    He sighed as he hung up the phone, then turned back to Matt and Molly. Matt's serious expression matched his own; Molly glanced back and forth between them with concern. Mohinder's words echoed in her mind: they were injured, but they would (probably; hopefully) live. The thought brought her some measure of relief, but not as great as she would have expected. According to the information in her journals and Claire's scrap of regained memory, there had been a time for a few years when she had been armed and capable of getting rid of dangerous people herself. But now she had only been able to run and hide while Malina had jumped in front of a bullet. Not that she  _ wanted  _ to be running around with a gun shooting people, but why did she have to be so helpless?

    "That was Angela Petrelli," Mohinder announced, redirecting Molly's attention from her own self-worth back to the phone call. "Apparently she misinterpreted a vision recently and told Noah that Claire was a nefarious shapeshifter in disguise, hence why he was attempting to kill her."

    "Yeah, I figured it was something like that," Matt sighed. "Y'know, if Peter would come back from wherever he ran off to, he could've come to the rescue instead," he added. "I bet he would have done a better job at it than us, that's for sure."

    Molly shook her head, keeping her arms wrapped tight around Matt. "You do a great job of coming to the rescue," she told him.

_ Good enough for me, anyway _ , she thought as Matt murmured a thank-you and planted a kiss to her forehead. Mohinder laid his hand on Matt's shoulder, and they exchanged a warm smile. With her tears finally dried, Molly stepped back to admire how perfectly the three of them fit together, like puzzle pieces finally reassembled after being lost and collecting dust for years. Whatever had happened, whatever would happen next, she knew one thing: she wasn't in any danger anymore. Her family was there to protect her.

* * *

    Tracy woke to the sound of a rhythmic beeping and the feeling of soft bedding around her. Everything felt strange and unfocused, like she had fallen asleep on a plane and was now in a different time zone, but there wasn't a single twinge of pain in her body. She inhaled, only to gag at the medicinal smell she was met with. Was she at a hospital? In that case, had her fight against her clone and subsequently getting poisoned all been just a dream?

    Cautiously, she blinked open her eyes. Above her, blurry at first but soon sharpening into focus, was a white ceiling. Around her, white walls--a curtain to one side of her, a muted TV mounted to the wall in front of her, and to the other side a sleeping figure on a chair. As her vision sharpened, she realized who it was with a pang of surprise--although maybe she should have expected it.

    "Micah."

    She wasn't sure whether she had spoken his name aloud or not until he jerked awake at her voice. He had been there before, she remembered, looking after her while she faded in and out of consciousness. So maybe all that hadn't been a dream after all. He broke into a grin upon seeing her, and she smiled back, half for his sake and half because she was just glad to be alive.

    "Sorry I fell asleep," he said. "How are you? Do you feel okay?"

    "Never better," she replied.

    Although she spoke sarcastically, it was actually true. She could feel the weight of her body holding her in place, without any deadly flares of pain in her chest, nor any churning in her gut or dizziness or flushed skin sticky with sweat. She felt… _fine._ _Alive._ She raised her hand and held it in front of her face, marveling at its solidity, then slowly curled it into a fist and opened it again. It was surreal.

    "I guess Peter came through on that blood transfusion, eh?" she mused. Raising her head, she scanned the hospital room, but it was empty apart from herself and Micah--and presumably another patient on the other side of the curtain. "Where is he now?"

    "He and Sylar stepped out to get coffee," Micah explained. "For us as well as for themselves. They should be back in a few minutes."

    "Well, when they come back in, I guess I'd better thank them," she said. Seeing no reason not to, she sat up, being careful not to disturb the tube hooked up to her arm. "So," she asked, "How long was I out?"

    Micah's grin faded, and he shifted in his seat, gaze dropping.  _ Damn, wrong question _ , Tracy thought. A twinge of guilt pricked at her as she remembered waking up a couple times while poisoned and seeing him sitting there at her bedside just like he was now. How much time and effort had he devoted to looking after her? (What made him think she was worth the effort?)

    "You appeared at the store I was working at yesterday morning," he replied, his gaze downcast and his voice low. "I brought you back to my apartment and took the rest of the day off. We got you to the hospital a little after nightfall, and it's about three in the morning now. So, it hasn't been all that long, but… uh, it's been a really long day." He took his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it before tucking it away again. "Correction: four in the morning."

    "You should go back to sleep, then," she told him. "I mean, not that I'm the boss of you…"

    (The words  _ I'm not your mom  _ hung on the tip of her tongue, but that would hardly be an appropriate thing to remind him of. He probably had to remind himself of that every time he looked at her--although if it was bothering him now, he gave no indication.)

    "No, you're right," he said. He smiled again without looking up, so she couldn't see whether or not it reached his eyes. "I am pretty tired. But like I said, Peter and Sylar should be back in a couple of minutes, so…"

    "You'll stay up until then?" she guessed; he nodded. "That's fine. I can't say I don't appreciate the company."

    "Okay, cool." He raised his head, and although his smile was subtler than before, it didn't look faked. "So, um, how are you feeling?"

    "Honestly? I feel pretty damn good," she replied. "Especially after being stuck in a lake for the past few years."

    "Oh, that's right--you said something about that while you were poisoned," he said. "I kinda thought you were, I dunno, hallucinating or something. You also mentioned getting stabbed? What was that all about?"

    "Oh, boy, let me tell you!" She laughed wryly, only to break off with a wince as a phantom pain flared up in her chest. It faded as quickly as it set on, but it served as a grim reminder of the situation she had escaped thanks to Peter's healing blood. Micah leaned toward her, brows pinching with concern. "Uh, let's see… remember the last phone call I made to you before disappearing? Well, as you can probably guess, things didn't turn out very well…"

    She recounted the story of her time with the Woodsmans as best she could: meeting them and going along with their incorrect assumption about her identity; bonding with Shema during their camping trip; Jeff listening in on her phone call; being stabbed and turning into water to stop herself from bleeding out; getting unceremoniously dumped into the lake like a fish that was under the legal size limit. Micah listened intently throughout, occasionally interjecting with a murmur of amazement or disbelief. Once she was done, she sat back in her bed with a sigh. The machine she was connected to was still beeping steadily away. She wondered if she was allowed to detach the tube from her arm yet.

    "I wonder if there's a moral to be found in what happened to me," she commented, fiddling idly with the tube and twisting it around her finger like a key ring. "Like the universe was getting back at me for lying about who I was."

    "That's probably what that Jeff Woodsman guy was doing," Micah replied. "I don't know about the universe, but it could be."

    Tracy hummed thoughtfully in response. Glancing around the room again, she didn't see a door--it must have been on the other side of the room, past the curtain. There was a window, although she couldn't really see out it from her current position. Not that it made a difference what angle she was at, since it was dark out and the only thing to see was a bunch of neon signs stretching into the distance. Not exactly pastoral--although after her camping experience, she couldn't foresee herself being a big nature enthusiast in the near future. And it was one of those windows designed so that it couldn't open--maybe to keep patients from trying to climb out through it--so it wouldn't provide any fresh air as a respite from the pervasive chemically medicinal smell.

    "Peter is taking a while, isn't he?" she observed, looking back at the unmoving curtain. "There must have been a long line at the coffeeshop."

    "Yeah, I guess so," Micah agreed. "I'd text them to check in, but obviously neither of them own phones since they've been living off the grid all this time. I lent them the money to buy the coffees," he added.

    "Damn, that's nice," Tracy said, arching an eyebrow. "You'd better make sure they pay you back."

    "I think I’ll text my boss, though," he went on, taking his phone back out and turning it on. His thumbs were a blur as he typed out a message. "Just to let her know you're awake now. She's probably sleeping, but…"

    A few seconds after he finished typing, his phone dinged and lit up. Micah's eyes widened, and he chuckled softly to himself, brushing his fingertips against the surface of his phone.

    "I guess Otomo-san is staying up pretty late tonight," he murmured. He typed another message as he spoke, keeping his eyes glued to the screen. "Or, wait--she told me to call her by her first name. I dunno if I can do that, though… it seems too casual."

    Tracy observed her nephew with a bemused smile, arching an eyebrow. Although she didn’t comment on it, it looked like Micah was blushing a bit; she got the feeling that his relationship with his boss was a little more than professional. Of course her assessment may have been way off--her memories of her time being poisoned were a blur, and she didn’t remember Micah’s boss or the way they interacted at all--but she had her suspicions nonetheless.

    A few more minutes ticked by. There was still no sign of Peter or Sylar. Tracy drummed her fingers against the edge of her hospital bed, knees drawn up to her chest and turned to face the window. Micah was looking at his phone, quite possibly paying a mobile game, although he had the volume turned off so it was hard to tell. He occasionally glanced up at the TV, which appeared to be playing a news story--something about a crime, it looked like. The curtains of the window rustled in the wind. Tracy felt a strange but familiar prickle in her throat, and it took her a moment to realize that she was thirsty.

    "Is there, like, a faucet in here or something?" she asked. Looking up from his phone, Micah frowned and shrugged.

    "Well, there's a bathroom, so probably," he said. "But you could also get a nurse to come by and bring you some water."

    "I thought so." She examined the machinery at the head of her bed. There were a few buttons here and there, but most of them looked too important to be touched. Hesitantly, she raised her hand and let it hover a few inches away from a larger button that looked like it might be the buzzer to summon the nurse. "Is this it?"

    She pressed the button without waiting for an answer. It made a little buzzing noise (so it was definitely the buzzer, then). With that taken care of, she sat back down, moving herself into a cross-legged position now. The faintest traces of light were beginning to filter into the sky, although it was still dark enough that only the edges of buildings illuminated by their flashing signs were visible out the window. From behind her, she heard Micah yawn; although she hadn't been tired at all a moment before, rather feeling refreshed from her healing blood transfusion, she suddenly found herself battling back a yawn as well.

    Out of boredom, she turned her attention toward the TV. Now it was showing an aerial view of a large white building with a crowd of people gathered around outside. As the camera zoomed in on something happening down on the ground, Tracy couldn't help thinking that the building looked a bit like a…

    "That's the hospital we're at right now!" Micah exclaimed, eyes widening. Then, as the camera continued zooming in: "Wait, what's going on?"

    He jumped up and stood atop his chair to reach the TV, then laid his hands against it. After a moment, the formerly muted volume crackled to life, accompanied by English subtitles translating the frantic speech of the newscaster. Eyes narrowing, Tracy leaned forward and scanned the subtitles.

_ "…Doesn't look like either side is backing down,"  _ the newscaster was saying over footage of a commotion outside the hospital doors. There were too many people clustered around, chattering worriedly amongst themselves, too parse exactly what was happening, but it sounded like a fight was going on. A flash of electric blue caught Tracy's eye, drawing her gaze to a blurry shot of a startlingly familiar face.  _ "The men who have stepped in to defend the hospital appear to be Americans. They are both utilizing multiple superhuman abilities in order to hold off the attackers. Reporters are currently trying to get up close to the scene for more details." _

    "Say, you don't suppose…" Tracy motioned toward the TV screen as the crowds parted just long enough to reveal the two men hovering just above outside the hospital doors, their hands glowing as they charged up an attack. "This is why they've been taking so long to get coffee?"

    "I-it looks like it," Micah stammered. "But then… who are they fighting?"

    Before the footage on the TV could provide an answer to that question, an odd but vaguely familiar whooshing noise sounded from behind them. Tracy turned her head to see the translucent outlines of two figures standing behind the curtain that divided the room. Glancing back at the TV screen, Peter and Sylar hadn't left their positions outside the building--so who had just come into the room?

    Tracy's heart pounded as the dividing curtain rustled and began to part. She had the sinking feeling that the questions  _ who are Peter and Sylar fighting out there? _ and  _ who just came into this room?  _ had a similar answer, and she was about to find out what it was.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The villains' plan is now officially in action: the dead have been raised, and now they're wreaking havoc against our heroes. Micah's fond memories cloud his judgement. Matt reflects on the situation. Miko comes to her friend's rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took so long with this chapter. Content warnings for here on out: there's zombies, not of the typical brain-eating variety, but definitely undead beings, and that entails a bit of not-too-graphic body horror. Also, since this and the next couple chapters are basically gonna be the climax, the amount of violence is gonna go up.

    Really, Sylar thought as he dodged a lightning bolt, it was typical that he and Peter couldn't even go for coffee without getting into trouble.

    They had barely gotten two steps out the hospital doors when, in a sudden rush of air, two figures had appeared before them. Although Peter had flinched at their appearance, Sylar had brushed it off and kept walking. With superpowered individuals out in the open now, he had to assume it wasn't uncommon for people to teleport or speed-run from place to place in public. However, when he glanced over his shoulder, he was surprised to find that his boyfriend had frozen in his tracks.

    "Peter?" he'd prompted, raising an eyebrow. "What are you…?"

    Peter had blinked and shook his head. "I--I don't know," he said. "For a moment there, I just got a chill."

    "Well, come on," Sylar urged, reaching back for Peter's hand. "We don't have all night."

    Nodding, Peter had taken his hand and stepped forward. The two people who had suddenly appeared had already vanished into the crowd--out of sight, out of mind, wasn't that how the saying went? They'd started down the sidewalk to the open-24-hours coffee shop down the block. Then, before they could even clear the parking lot…

    This time it was Sylar's turn to flinch at the loud noise coming from behind him. He had stumbled forward, pushed by an invisible force that felt like a strong, red-hot wind against his back. At his side, he'd heard Peter scream; glancing over at him with a spike of alarm, he had seen his boyfriend falling forward to land on the pavement with a hollow thump, his back charred and sizzling.

    Eyes wide, Sylar had whirled around to see the grotesque figure standing over Peter's collapsed body. It looked like a man, standing with his hands extended and glowing with a deadly light, except… A shiver ran down Sylar's spine as he took in the face of their attacker. He--or maybe  _ it _ would be a better term--stood upright, swaying slightly on the spot on withered legs. His clothes were tattered and caked in dirt, revealing scraps of mottled gray skin and dark, rotting flesh where the skin too had been eaten away. One of his leg bones jutted through the leg of his pants, gleaming in the dim pink light cast by neon lettering against the dark of the night. Most of his jaw had decayed as well, and his eye sockets were empty, leaving only a blank half-skeletal grin. Finally, the top of his head was missing, sawed off in an all-too-familiar manner. Sylar had sworn under his breath, his pulse fluttering, as he took a step away from the ghoulish form. He was used to having his past catch up with him, but it didn't usually take on such a tangible form.

    Peter had groaned, pushing himself to his feet as his back knitted itself back together. At the same time, another half-rotted figure had sidled up next to the first. This one had a slighter figure, thanks in no small part to the fact that its decayed form was charred and blackened from head to toe with much of it burnt off. Specks of sand clung to its burnt husk of a figure like the stars against a pitch-black sky. One of its arms had fallen off, but it didn't seem perturbed by this; it stretched its yellow-toothed maw into a sneer as it raised its existent arm, sparks of bright blue electricity fizzing around its hand.

    "What the hell?" Peter had panted, gripping Sylar's hand as he boggled at the two ghastly figures standing before them. "Wha… what are they?!"

    "I have no idea," Sylar had replied. And it was true--he had no idea what those things were. He did, however, have the sneaking suspicion that he knew  _ who  _ they were, or rather, who they had been a long time ago. Before he had gotten his hands on them.

    The smaller, burnt figure had stepped forward first, drawing its arm back. Anticipating the lightning attack moments before it came, Sylar had swerved to avoid its trajectory. The bolt had sailed over his head, prompting screams from civilians on the sidewalk around them as they too became aware of the undead beings' presence. The lightning had found its mark in a billboard, sending a spray of sparks and debris on a small cluster of young adults who'd been converged beneath it; they shrieked and scattered, as did many others in the vicinity.

    Of course Peter had realized and subsequently pointed out the obvious--there were too many innocent people around for them to properly fight off their attackers. Unfortunately, that fact wasn't going to deter the walking corpses any more than the fact that their bodies were severely decayed and missing the top half of their skulls.

    So now they were fighting for their lives in the hospital parking lot, trying and largely failing to hold back the chattering crowd gathered around them. Thanks to their healing abilities, Sylar and Peter weren't technically in much danger, and Sylar kept reminding himself of this as he and his boyfriend repeatedly dodged and sometimes failed to dodge an onslaught of electric and radioactive attacks. But the corpses weren't backing down. No matter how many times they were struck down, they would get to their feet and shake it off like it was nothing. At first Sylar hadn't understood how they managed to keep moving without falling into pieces, but as the battle raged on, he was beginning to understand. Rather than increasingly damaged, their opponents were looking decidedly less and less undead. Their flesh and skin were regrowing--even the sawed-off tops of their heads. Their shambling bodies were gradually regenerating. And their nerves and muscles must have been regenerating too, because their movements were starting to gain a bit more speed and agility. Not enough to match himself or Peter, not yet, but enough to make things troublesome. Powers or not, if one of those abominations managed to blast their heads off, it would be game over. And unlike zombies--because that's what they were, he decided; there was no other word for them--the living had a limited supply of stamina.

    Sylar ducked, hissing under his breath, as the zombie nearest to him threw its bony fist against the wall where his head had been a moment before. A blast went off in his ears; he cringed as a shower of ash rained down on him. In a deft movement, he stepped around the zombie, grabbed it from behind, and pushed it against the wall. Then, holding it in place telekinetically, he backed away as its body began to glow with radiation. It was a familiar glow--one he had seen his own hands alight with once many years ago, and Peter's too. The glow grew ever brighter, and even as he backed away more quickly, he could feel the sting of its heat radiating outward. Himself and Peter would ultimately be fine no matter what happened, but the rest of the people gathered around to watch the fight? Peter wouldn't want to see innocent lives lost, and because of that fact, neither did Sylar. Gritting his teeth, Sylar tightened his telekinetic grip on the zombie and raised his hand, flinging it upward into the air.

    The explosion detonated when it was only a few meters off the ground, just above the roof of the hospital. Sylar turned away from the blast, bringing his hands up to shield his face. The force was enough to knock him over onto his side; around him, the gathered civilians screamed. The sound of a crash made him flinch. When he reopened his eyes, he saw the source of the sound: the corner of the hospital roof had been blown off and fallen to the ground. Luckily nobody had been standing there at the time, but a few of the onlookers finally seemed to realize that standing around watching this battle was a bad idea. More of them turned to run, leaving only a few straggling spectators behind. Meanwhile, the sizzling corpse dropped limply to the ground as well, only to drag itself back to its feet and take another trudging step toward Sylar.

    Before it could reach him, it was intercepted by a blur speeding through the air. Peter snatched the zombie off the ground and flung it against the wall, where it slumped to the ground with a low growl. Pausing to brush his bangs out of his eyes, Peter glanced over at Sylar.

    "You okay?"

    "I've certainly been worse," he replied. Evidently satisfied with that response, Peter nodded and turned his attention back to his opponent.

    With his boyfriend now taking on the radioactive zombie, Sylar got to his feet and looked around for its companion. He didn't have to look far--when he turned around, it was standing right behind him, hands extended towards him and crackling with lightning.

    "Whoops," he murmured as he swerved to avoid the electric attack. "Guess I should've been paying closer attention."

    He grabbed the zombie's arms from behind and pinned them behind its back. It snarled, twisting its head around to snap at him.  _ Wait. Arms, plural? _ Indeed, he noticed with a twinge of alarm, his undead opponent's initially missing limb appeared to have fully regrown already. A lot of its flesh and skin had grown back, too, as well as the top half of its head. (That part was almost a relief; it made it easier not to think about who this corpse might have once belonged to, and how that person's life had ended.) If the zombies' regeneration kept going, before long you would never know that they were undead abominations.

    "Sorry," he hissed into the zombie's ear. "You're not going to shock me again."

    With that, he pointed his fingers down at the zombie's wrists and, in a telekinetic motion he hadn't made in quite a while, sliced its hands off.

    The zombie barely reacted at all to the loss of its hands, which fell to the ground with the lightning around them quickly dissolving. In retrospect, Sylar really should have seen its retaliation coming. Of course it could still fire an attack; electricity wasn't stored in the hands (in the average human body, it wasn't generally stored anywhere, but that was beside the point in a world of superhumans). But in that moment, he let his guard down, and the next thing he knew he was sent flying backwards by a massive discharge of lightning that surged through his body with a sickening sizzle. Sylar blacked out moments before he hit the ground.

    The next thing he knew, Peter was kneeling over him and shaking him awake. Groaning, Sylar sat up, wincing at the unpleasant tingling sensation in his nerves. Little points of light danced across his vision for a moment; looking around, the last of their gathered onlookers seemed to have come to their senses and gotten out of there. In the distance, an approaching police siren wailed. Soot and sweat were smeared across Peter's face, and his hair was thoroughly disheveled, but his expression became a relieved grin the moment Sylar met his gaze. Looking past him, their attackers were nowhere to be seen.

    "How long was I out?" Sylar asked as Peter pulled him to his feet.

    "Only a minute," Peter told him. He turned and nodded toward the collapsed part of the hospital roof, and Sylar noticed what he had missed before: the undead beings writhing beneath the off-white bricks that had fallen from the building. "I managed to pin them down, but if the nuclear one goes off again…"

    "Mm, yeah. It could be bad."

    Peter hesitated for a moment, glancing between Sylar and their trapped opponents. Knowing how his boyfriend ticked, Sylar braced himself for the inevitable question. Surely Peter had noticed by now, and come to the same conclusions as to the zombies' former identities.  _ Are those people who you killed? _ And, yes, he was quite certain that they were. Who or what had brought them back and with what purpose, he couldn't hope to know, but he recognized those abilities beyond a doubt as ones he had taken for himself all those years ago. Under his boyfriend's inquisitive gaze, dread squeezed at his heart. He never had understood how Peter had forgiven him for his past sins, but when faced with such a tangible reminder, would that forgiveness still hold fast?

    "Sylar, are those…" Peter's voice was hesitant, his hand hovering close to Sylar's as though unsure whether to take it or not. "Are those things people?"

    Sylar blinked, caught off guard by the question. Peter continued:

    "I know they look human, but I don't think they are. I can't get a read on what they're thinking or feeling; they just keep attacking without reason. And looking at them, don't you think they look almost like…"

    "Zombies?"

    Peter nodded. "It seems like a stupid term to use, doesn't it? But I can't think of a better term for them."

    Sylar quirked an eyebrow. He almost wanted to ask,  _ Is that all?  _ Instead, probably in his own best interests, he kept his mouth shut. They could have a serious discussion about his past later, once the threat was permanently dealt with. Trying not to show how relieved he was at the absence of a more accusatory question, he took Peter's hand and nodded toward where their opponents were still struggling to climb out from under the fallen pile of bricks.

    "I'd say it's as good a term as any," he said. Then, raising his hand and igniting it with the same electricity their undead opponent was armed with: "Now, let's finish these  _ zombies  _ off, shall we?"

* * *

    The rustle of the dividing curtain caught Micah's ear, diverting his attention from the scene playing out on the TV screen. He turned just in time to see a figure stepping through the curtain, followed shortly by another. Micah froze in place at the sight of them, breath catching in his throat. His brain resisted processing the information laid out before him: rotted flesh clinging to bones; sunken faces with yellowed teeth stretched back in a scowl; the smell of death seeping in beneath the clean medicinal scent of the hospital.

    Although both of them appeared equally decayed, the figure that stepped through first was dotted with patches of charred skin, and with each staggering step, it seemed on the verge of falling apart. Both the zombies' clothes were tattered and caked with dirt, but the one in front appeared to be wearing a dress. The second figure was much more… together, for the most part. It was taller, too, with a sturdier frame. Still, it hung back and let its companion take the lead, empty eye sockets fixed on Micah with an intensity that would have sent a chill down his spine even without their grisly appearances. He couldn't bring his body to move, not that he would have known what to do if he could. All he could do was stare as the apparently undead beings trudged toward him.

    In a sudden burst of movement that snapped Micah out of his trance, Tracy jumped to her feet, yanking out the tubes from her arms. The machine she'd been hooked up to beeped in protest, but she paid it no mind as she dashed to the window and laid her hands on the glass. Micah thought about offering his own protest, but he figured that since the operation was complete and Tracy was healthy, maybe she really didn't need to keep the tubes hooked up to her. 

    "That window doesn't open," he told her instead. "I tried to get it open earlier, while you were asleep, but…"

    He trailed off as he realized what she was doing. A coating of frost seeped from her fingers, coating the window. Once it was frozen, she jabbed it with her elbow; the window shattered, leaving jagged chunks of frozen glass around the edges of the frame. Shivering from the cold of his aunt's power, Micah glanced over his shoulder to see that the undead beings seemed to have come to a stop at the foot of the hospital bed, but those sunken eye sockets were still trained on them. As much as he admired Tracy's ingenuity, he wasn't so sure about climbing through that window; at about one and a half by two feet, it would be beyond a tight squeeze. Besides, how exactly were they supposed to get down? A look out the window revealed that it was a long way down--probably about five stories.

    "I think I can create an ice ramp to get us down," she said, as though in answer to his unasked question. She followed Micah's gaze to the swath of parking lot below them, dotted with cars and framed by a strip of gray-green grass. There were no signs of commotion down there; the battle they'd seen waging on the TV must have been transpiring around the other side of the building. "So I'll go down first, of course."

    As she spoke, she hiked her leg up and lifted it through the broken window, moving swiftly yet with enough precision to ignore the bits of glass around the edges. From there, she grabbed onto the windowsill on the outside of the building and pulled the rest of her body through. Her other leg scraped against a piece of broken glass on her way through, and she visibly flinched but quickly brushed it off. It took her a matter of seconds to get through; once she perched on the opposite sill, she did as she said, pointing her hands downward and emitting a blast of cold air that solidified in the form of a sheet of ice beneath her feet. In a cautious movement, she lowered herself onto the ice sheet--it looked to be about an inch thick, which seemed worryingly thin to Micah--while still holding on to the window frame. After a moment, she relaxed her full weight onto the ice platform, her hands dropping away from the window; she gave Micah an affirmative nod.

    "Okay… I sure hope this holds with both of us on it," he muttered as he placed his hands on the windowsill and prepared to climb through the window. "Uh, you can start going down first and forming the slope, so we won't both have to be on the same part of the ice at the same time!"

    "My thoughts exac--"

    Tracy broke off, eyes going wide. Micah was about to ask what the problem was when he felt a cold hand--not cold with ice, but cold with death--clamp down on his shoulder. Before he could even begin to react, he was flung backward across the room with the force of a cannonball.

    In retrospect, were it not for the layout of the room, things might have ended right then and there had he flown all the way across the room and slammed into the opposite wall. Instead, he bounced off the hospital bed and landed on the floor with an undignified thud. Dazed and with a sharp ache in his side where he had connected with the corner of the mattress, he pulled himself to his feet. One of the undead figures--the one who had tossed him--stood by the window while the other remained at the foot of the bed, effectively cornering him. Swallowing hard, Micah took a tentative sideways step away from the bed, toward the dividing curtain. The zombie, or whatever it was, standing nearest to him cocked its head and mirrored his sideways movement. When Micah took a step backward, pressing his back up against the wall, the zombie took two steps forward, narrowing the distance between them.

    "Oh, shit," Tracy hissed. "Change of plans."

    In a fluid motion, she was back in the room, grabbing the zombie closest to her by its shoulders and tackling it. The zombie stumbled forward and fell face first against the floor. At the thump of its companion falling, the other zombie swung its head around to stare at Tracy. She pinned the first zombie down, frost gathering around her hands, but before she could freeze it the zombie rolled over with a growl, pinning Tracy beneath it. With a cry of protest, Micah clambered over the hospital bed towards her. Before he could get there, she had already kicked the zombie off and gotten to her feet; she glanced over at Micah and gave him a slight nod as though to assure him she was alright.

    "So, what now?" Micah asked as he rejoined his aunt's side. She was standing in a fighting stance, fists raised and poised to attack the zombies.. "I don't think we should just escape anymore. It would mean leaving these zombie-type things free to roam around this building, right? People could get hurt."

    "Mm… not to mention that if we let them live, they might just come back and attack us again later," she added. "I could finish them off with a cold snap, but you would have to be out of the room for that, or else you would get caught in it as well."

    Micah nodded, mind already racing to plot out his next move. He glanced over at the broken window, which they were no longer positioned directly in front of, but were rather a few feet away from. The original plan of sliding down an ice ramp to escape sounded exciting if nothing else, but Tracy would need to form said ramp first, and she couldn't be in two places at once. He would have to get out the old fashioned way, then. Although they both appeared to be hanging back for the time being, the two zombies still stood between Micah and the door, effectively forming a barricade. Would he be able to get past them?

_ Well, _ he decided,  _ I'll have to try. _

    As he turned to sprint away, he called over his shoulder: "Make sure you don't do the cold snap until I'm out of the room!" The zombies jerked back to attention at his movement as he took a running leap and vaulted over the hospital bed. He could hear the sickly shifting of their flesh as they moved to pursue him, although the sound was quickly obscured by the rustle of the dividing curtain as he ducked through it. Nobody was in the other bed--a small mercy, as it allowed him to scramble over that bed as well without having to go around it, which would have slowed him down. From there, although his heart pounded with every step he took, he didn't have many of those heart-pounding steps left to take until he reached the door and opened it with a triumphant shove.

    As he ducked out into the surprisingly empty hallway, he could hear Tracy addressing the zombies with some sort of cocky remark, but he tugged the door shut behind him without waiting to hear what she said. Backing away from the door, he drew in a breath and waited.

    Even through the door, the blast of cold air that came a moment later hit hard enough to sting at his skin. Beneath the door, frost crept into the hallway, coming to a stop just inches away from Micah's sneakers as he stood in the middle of the hall. He exhaled, watching his breath curl up in front of him in a puff of white, and ran his hands up and down his arms.

    In that moment, Micah knew for a fact that it was over. Whatever those zombie things had been, nothing alive or undead could survive being frozen solid--or even if they had some sort of regenerative capabilities that would allow them to thaw out, that wouldn't be an instantaneous process. In the time it would take for the zombies to defrost themselves, Tracy could shatter their frozen forms into a million tiny pieces, and there was no regenerating from something like that.

    In the very next moment, he was proven wrong.

    Micah's heart dropped out of his chest like an elevator with a severed cable as one of the zombies trudged through the door.  _ Through  _ the door. It didn't open it--the door was frozen shut--but it just walked  _ through  _ the door like it was thin air. It wasn't the one who had tossed him across the room, but rather its companion, the one that had hung back. There wasn't even a dusting of frost on its sunken skin. Micah swallowed hard, taking a step backward at the zombie's approach. Half of his mind was screaming with fear, but the other half was spinning a mile a minute as little by little, everything clicked into place.

    This zombie… it could phase through things.  _ Walking through walls _ . And the other one--the one wearing that tattered and dirt-covered dress--it had thrown him away from the window with more power than most people had.  _ Superstrength _ . And now he knew why those zombies were there, although he still couldn't hope to know how. He knew exactly who they were, or rather, who they had been before they were zombies. The realization hit him hard enough to knock him off balance, and he dropped to his knees as though dragged downward by a magnet. For a moment he expected himself to cry, but although his body trembled, his vision remained unobscured by tears. Looking so clearly ahead at the zombie now, as it stood over him with its blank face and dangling limbs, he almost wondered how he hadn't realized sooner. He had never been good at identifying emotions, and he couldn't name the feeling that washed over him then, be it joy or misery or horror.

    "D-D--" he stammered, his lips drawn back into something halfway between a grin and a grimace. "…Dad."

    The zombie cocked its head. For a moment it just stared down at him, and he stared back at it, wide-eyed and holding his breath. Then, as though reacting to him, it bent down and sunk into its own kneeling position. Suddenly it didn't look quite so decayed anymore, and Micah wasn't sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him now or if they had been before or both, but he could now with absolute certainty make out his father's face where before he had only seen a featureless, expressionless ghoul.

    (He tried not to think too hard about the other zombie, frozen in place to the white tiled floor. That was his mom, or at least it had been. Had he just lost her again without even realizing it--this time at the hands of her clone, no less? Were they really just mindless zombies, or was there a spark of real life behind those hollow stares?)

    The zombie kneeling in front of him extended its rotting hand. Maybe it was just the lighting, but he could swear that its mottled greenish-gray skin was now a healthier shade of brown, that it was padded with enough muscle and flesh so that he couldn't make out the shape of the bones beneath the skin. And for a moment, he didn't see a zombie in front of him at all. Instead, seemingly out of nowhere, he remembered a moment from his childhood.

_ It had taken a few weeks of saving up his allowance and doing a few odd jobs around the neighbourhood, but he had finally been able to afford a second-hand bike from a yard sale. Biking had never really interested him before, but according to everyone in his online chatrooms, all the cool kids had bikes. Maybe he should have started learning how to ride one sooner, though, because he wasn't very good. The first time he tried riding one, he managed to fall down exactly two seconds after his parents let go of the bike. The second, third, and fourth attempts didn't go any better. Finally, after his fifth consecutive time toppling over and scraping his knee against the pavement of the sidewalk, he was about ready to give up. _

_     "I don't think I can do this," he confessed later that afternoon as Niki sprayed antiseptic on his knee; he squirmed in his seat at the sting of the medicine against his skin. "I'm still not getting any better at it." _

_     "You're only just getting started," she told him, giving him the same encouraging smile she'd given him each time just before he tipped over and crashed to the ground. "It took me forever to learn how to ride a bike when I was your age." _

_     "Really? I always thought you'd have been a natural," DL interjected from over by the sink, where he was pouring up glasses of lemonade from a powdered mix. He shut the tap off and walked over to the kitchen table, pausing to give Niki a kiss on the head as he handed her and Micah their lemonade. Bending over to ruffle Micah's hair, he said, "You'll get better, you'll see." _

_     Micah was unconvinced, but kept it to himself. He knew that the bike had cost a lot of money, even though they'd gotten it for cheaper than the new store bought ones. He took a sip of his lemonade, wincing at how overly sweet it was. The powder mixes never were very good. _

_     "Well, you don't have to go back out there today if you don't want to," Niki conceded. "But if the weather is nice again tomorrow, maybe you could try again then?" She paused while tucking the antiseptic back into the first aid kit. "Let's see, which bandaid do you want?" _

_     "Um…" He leaned over to look at the selection in the kit. "One of the spiderman ones!" _

_     Nodding, she took out the selected bandaid and applied it to his scraped knee. As she did so, DL peered out the window; he turned back to face them with a slight frown. _

_     "It's looking like it might rain soon," he said. "If it rains overnight, the roads will probably be slippery tomorrow--not safe to ride a bike on." He knelt down in front of Micah, giving him a hopeful smile. "How about you give it one more go before the rain starts?" _

_     Micah frowned, swinging his legs back and forth out of habit. "I dunno," he muttered. _

_     "Well, that's okay, then. Like your mom says, you don't have to if you don't want," DL told him. "I just figured it was worth a shot. What would you like to do instead, then?" _

_     "Maybe play a board game or something?" he suggested with a shrug. "Like, uh… pictionary?" _

_     "That sounds like a great idea," Niki agreed. After closing up the first aid kit, she patted Micah on the cheek and stood up. "I'll go get the game set up." _

_     As Niki turned to leave the room, DL extended his hand toward Micah. He didn't need any help getting up--as much as it had hurt at first, his scraped knee had barely even drawn any blood--but he understood the meaning behind the gesture. Smiling, he took his dad's hand and got to his feet. _

_     "It's okay if you can't master bicycling," DL told him as they followed Niki into the living room. "I never quite got the hang of it myself. But I'd like you to keep trying for as long as you can, okay?" _

_     Micah nodded. Although the thought of falling down again made his heart quicken with fear, knowing that his parents would be there to catch him when he fell made the prospect less scary. Not today, when his skin still stung from his impact with the pavement, and not tomorrow if the weather didn't allow it, but someday. Someday soon he would try again, and whether he ever got any better or not, his parents would be there for him no matter what. _

    Now, in the present moment of kneeling on the cold, slick hallway of the hospital, he reached out without properly thinking and grabbed onto his father's outstretched hand.

    Or rather, he tried to grab it. Instead, his hand slid right through DL's. And then, in that horrifying moment when Micah realized his mistake, DL's hand slid right into him. It felt cold and unmistakably dead as it phased into the left side of his chest, and when it solidified within his lung and clamped down hard, Micah would have gagged even if it weren't for the breathless pain that exploded inside him.

    The zombie retracted its hand, ripping out a clump of bloody, sinewy tissue. Gasping, Micah fell back against the wall. Across the hallway, he could hear Tracy pounding against the door and yelling to him.

    "Micah, can you hear me? Get away from that thing!" she was shouting. "Damn it, the door's frozen shut. Hey, are you there? Can you hear me? It can phase through things--you can't fight it. Run away!"

    Her words, already muffled through the doorway, became increasingly hard to make out, as though she were moving further and further away. Through blurred vision, Micah watched the undead being that had once been his father get up, turn its back on him, and trudge back through the door. Face contorted from the ceaseless waves of pain shooting through him with every laborious breath, he opened his mouth to warn Tracy that the zombie was coming back. A trickle of blood spilled from his lips, accompanied by a low gurgle, but no words. The last thing he heard before his eyes fluttered shut and his senses lapsed into a cold darkness was Tracy's panicked voice, and he had no idea if she was panicked for his sake or for her own.

* * *

    Flashy images danced across the top screen of the DS, accompanied by bouncy music and sound effects. Biting his lip and narrowing his eyes, Tommy mashed his thumb against the arrow keys to prevent his character from falling off the platforms as it ran. The platform ahead of him stretched on just a little further, and then a big gap he'd have to jump over. He rolled over onto his back and held the game above his head as he pushed the  _ A  _ button twice to double-jump. For one glorious moment, his character seemed to soar through the air, well on its way to making the jump. Then, just before his character's boot-clad feet could stomp down on the next platform, making that satisfying metal clang sound effect, a pixelated bird swooped in from offscreen and knocked his character off-kilter. Tommy groaned in protest, pushing the  _ A  _ button as hard and fast as he could, but he already knew it was too late. His character let out an  _ oof _ of defeat as it dropped into the bottomless chasm between the platforms.

    "Dang it," Tommy muttered as the  _ "game over"  _ screen appeared. He turned the game off and set it down on his dresser next to his collection of collectable figurines, then sat back down on his bed with a sigh.

    Looking around his bedroom, everything looked so familiar. It definitely felt like he had been there before. But even after sitting and laying on a familiar bed, playing familiar games on a console with buttons that were worn and faded from use, picking up and examining the action figures that stood in a row on his dresser… no past events were suddenly flashing through his mind. That was how it was supposed to happen, right? Something triggered a suppressed memory and it all came rushing back to him? He  _ sort of  _ remembered being here before, but it was all vague and jumbled together in his mind; no distinct events stood out, and although he knew he had played with the action figures on his dresser without having been told as much, he couldn't recall actually doing it. If he really was getting his memories back, it was a frustratingly slow process.

    A knock on his bedroom door, which he had left ajar to prevent himself from feeling trapped inside, snapped him out of his thoughts; he looked up to see Anne standing outside. Tommy got up and headed to the door to open it for her, although of course she easily could have pushed the door open on her own. He noticed that she held a cordless landline phone in her hand, and that the smile she flashed him when he met her gaze didn't quite meet her eyes, which were clouded with worry.

    "It's Mr. Bennet," she told him, the perfunctory smile she'd briefly put on for him dropping away. Her mouth was stretched thin with concern as she stepped forward to hand him the phone. "Apparently he needs to tell you something about your sister."

    She backed out of the room and closed the door behind her as Tommy raised the phone to his ear. He frowned, nervous about his mother's demeanor; he got the impression Noah didn't have good news for him. Nevertheless, he tucked his free hand into his pocket and spoke into the phone with as casual a tone as he could manage.

    "Uh, hi, Noah. What's up?"

    "It's…" Noah hesitated, letting out a quiet yet heavy sigh. Even before he said anything else, his tone of voice was confirmation that something terrible had happened. Tommy tensed in anticipation of the news. "There was a misunderstanding. An accident. It was my fault, really, and…" He cleared his throat, and went on with a more level, managed tone. "Malina is in the hospital right now recovering from a serious injury. Luckily none of her vital organs were damaged. The doctors said that the bullet was just a few centimetres away from puncturing her lung."

    Noah's words hit Tommy like a punch to the gut. Breath catching in his throat, he fell backward onto the bed, where the mattress sank under his weight. An image sprang to his mind that he recognized as his sister, despite not having seen her since having his mind scrambled; were it not for the circumstances, he would have been thrilled to realize that his memories really were coming back, albeit at a different rate than expected. As it was, he couldn't feel anything but disbelief and dread. There was a long pause, during which he couldn't speak around the icy apprehension clawing at his throat, before Noah continued.

    "…Your mother is also hospitalized," he said in a strained voice. "I believe she's in surgery right now. We won't be able to visit either of them for a while. But… it looks like both of them are going to recover."

    Tommy's nerves relaxed slightly at that, but he remained tense. As Noah's words fully sank in, something clicked into place at the back of his mind, and he narrowed his eyes.  _ His mother? _ Anne was just in the other room, perfectly fine, so…

    "Do you mean my bio-mom?" he asked. "I thought she was--"

    His train of thought was abruptly derailed, and Noah's reply obscured, by a sudden scream from elsewhere in the house. Alarmed, Tommy dropped the phone and leapt to his feet. He ran to the door and threw it open, leaning out into the hallway.

    "Mom?" he called. "What's wrong?"

    "Tommy, don't come in here," Anne called back. It sounded like her voice was coming from the living room. "There's a--I don't know what it is, but it looks almost like--"

    She broke off into another scream, accompanied by the sound of a clatter and what sounded like the breaking of glass.

    "H-hold on!" Heart spiking, Tommy circled back to grab the phone off his bed. Through the earpiece, he could hear Noah still speaking to him, asking with increasing urgency if he was alright. He held the phone up to his ear and spoke into it as he rushed out into the hallway. "Uh, gramps, where are you right now?"

    "I'm in LA, a few blocks down from the hospital," he replied. "Catching up with a couple of old acquaintances at a coffee shop. Why do you ask?"

    "Because you're about to have some more company."

    No sooner had he rounded the corner into the living room than he was met with a sharp strip of steel flying toward his face. He ducked, letting out a yelp. The phone clattered out of his hand, emitting a short burst of static before falling silent. As Tommy dropped to the floor, feeling a rush of air just above his head as a blade swung over him, he heard Anne cry out his name. He looked up to see her standing in the opposite corner of the room with her back against the wall, next to the bookshelf. Maybe she was leaning against the wall more so than standing, really. On the ground next to her were the shattered shards of a colourful vase. Her face was contorted with pain as she clutched at her left shoulder; beneath her trembling hand, her shirt sleeve was soaked through with blood. Tommy's blood ran cold at the sight of his mother's injury, but it grew icier still when he saw who--or what--stood between them.

    Standing over him with a rusted, bloodied samurai sword in hand, was a living corpse. Its skin was pale and sallow, smeared with grave soil, and its stance was crooked as it stood on sunken, lifeless limbs. Even so, he instantly recognized it as his father.

    A wave of revulsion rolled through him as he stared up into blank yet achingly familiar eyes. In the moment when he couldn't bear to either move or tear his gaze away, it raised its sword above its head. Any apparent hesitation in its movements could be chalked up to the jerkiness with which the decaying body operated.

    "Hey!" Just before the sword came down on him, Anne's shout from across the room caught Tommy's attention. He glanced up to see her grab an unlit candle off the top of the bookshelf, next to where the vase had been before it had fallen, and fling it at the zombie. "Get away from him!"

    The zombie paused at the sound of her voice, jerking its head sideways to gaze at her with its empty, sunken eyes. The candle connected with the back of its skull with a loud thunk that sent the zombie toppling over. Snapped out of his brief horrified trance by the burst of action, Tommy scrambled out of the way so that it wouldn't fall on top of him. Heart pounding, he got to his feet and ran across the room to his mother. She was breathing hard, leaning up against the corner of the bookshelf, but her eyes still blazed with fighting spirit.

    "Come on," he urged, looping his arm around Anne to support her injured shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

    He didn't think he'd ever been to Los Angeles, and he didn't have a specific location to go off, but he closed his eyes and focused on the mental image of Noah in a coffee shop. A moment later, the air around him grew warmer and filled with nonchalant chatter and the aroma of coffee. He opened his eyes, taking a deep breath in and letting it out with a sigh of relief. Anne relaxed against his hold on her, letting out a hiss of pain. A few of the other patrons in the shop paused their conversations to look over at him when he appeared, but they went back to sipping their coffees after a moment; clearly they'd seen more unusual things. Glancing around, he didn't immediately spot Noah, so he moved as casually as he could to sit down at a two-person table in the corner of the room, next to an artificial fireplace.

    Once he and his mother were seated, Anne peeled her hand off her injured shoulder. Her hand was sticky with blood when she removed it; wincing, she wiped the blood on her pant leg. Her wince grew into a grimace as she examined the wound.

    "I'll have to get to a hospital pretty quick to get this checked out," she muttered. "Luckily it's not too deep a cut, but seeing as it was made by a rusty blade…"

    "Well, it's a good thing this shop is just a few blocks away from the hospital," Tommy replied. "I just took you here because it's where Noah said he was at the moment."

    "Oh, that's right…" Anne bit her lip, her gaze overcast. "Before you were interrupted, how much did Noah tell you about what had happened?"

    "He told me…" Tommy paused, the bewilderment the phone call had brought him bubbling back up. "He told me everything I needed to know."

    Anne nodded slowly; clearly Noah had given her a run-down of his news before she'd handed the phone over to Tommy. She looked like she might have wanted to say something, but remained silent, instead looking around the shop while Tommy gazed downward and drummed his fingers against the table. After a moment, Anne reached across the table with her uninjured arm to tug on Tommy's sleeve.

    "I think I see Noah sitting over there," she said, pointing toward a booth on the other side of the shop where three men and a young woman were sitting. Although one of the men had his back turned to them, it might well have been Noah judging by his short light brown hair and the suit he wore. "Do you want to go talk to him?"

    "Uh, sure." He stood up and moved to walk across the shop, only to stop and turn back to his mom. "Uh, do you need any help getting up?"

    "I have a cut on my shoulder, not a broken leg," she told him as she stood up. "I can move around just fine. But thank you for offering, dear."

    Nodding, Tommy zeroed his attention in on the booth and headed over to it. Between what Noah had told him over the phone and a zombie suddenly appearing in their house, it seemed like they had quite a bit to talk about.

* * *

    The longer they sat around the booth sipping their drinks, the more Matt was convinced that inviting Noah along had been a mistake. It was nothing personal--he liked the guy just fine, and under other circumstances he would have loved to catch up with him a bit. But right now, both parties had other, more important things weighing on their minds. That much was obvious when Noah politely interrupted Mohinder's in-depth explanation of something he'd been researching in order to phone his grandkid. Matt and Mohinder had, of course, felt obligated to remain silent during the phone call, exchanging awkward glances with each other as the heaviness in Noah's eyes and words as he spoke over the phone to Tommy permeated the atmosphere of the cozy coffee shop. Noah frowned at his cellphone for a moment before tucking it away into his jacket pocket with a long, heavy sigh. As he did so, Mohinder cleared his throat as though hoping to jump right back into his diatribe about biology and evolution right where he'd left off.

    "Er, as I was saying, it was then that I made a fascinating realization," he began, folding his hands around his cup of herbal tea. "You see, the chemical compounds used to concoct a formula that can grant people synthetic superhuman abilities, such as the one I administered to myself, can also be found in…"

    Matt leaned back in his seat--to the extent that he could lean back in a cushiony booth--raised his cup of coffee to his lips, and closed his eyes as he took a sip, casting his thoughts elsewhere. Normally when he zoned out on what Mohinder was saying, it was because it was just way too over his head. Actually, scratch that; there was no "normally" when it came to their interactions, not anymore, because he and Mohinder hadn't seen each other in years until Matt had found him half-dead in a car on the side of the road and taken it upon himself to tend to his wounded arm like he was a baby bird he'd found in his damn backyard. Not that he regretted doing so even for a second--even now, he cared deeply about Mohinder, and even if it had just been some random person, what kind of an asshole would come across someone in that state and not try to help them? Mohinder's arm was probably well on its way to healing now, but the cast would have to stay on for a while longer yet.

    He thought of how clumsy he'd been, with his extremely limited medical knowledge, one step up from using brandy and a hot iron like it was the old West. How his hands had shaken as he'd wrapped the bandages around the still-tender flesh. He hadn't meant to, but he'd been focused so hard on Mohinder during that moment that he'd picked up on a few of his half-conscious, delirious thoughts. Even just thinking of it now brought a blush to Matt's cheeks, but it was a blush of shame more so than pure embarrassment. It was far too intimate a thing, to have cradled Mohinder's unconscious body in his arms and laid him down on the pullout couch in his trailer, to have peeled off his clothes so he could disinfect and treat the wound, to have run his hands along bare skin that was clammy with sweat. You would hardly know it'd even happened, looking at Mohinder now. There was about half a foot of empty space yawning between them, and as Mohinder went on about his scientific discoveries, his eyes didn't light up with any sort of passion. He just stared down into his cup of tea, occasionally raising it to his lips to take a sip. It was such an obvious facade that Matt was sure Noah would have called them out on it were his mind not currently wracked with guilt and anxiety over the fates of his daughter and granddaughter.

    And on that note, of course, there was Molly.

    She sat on Noah's side of the booth, pressed up against the wall whereas he lingered near the edge of the seat, which put a little over a foot of space between them. She'd ordered a hot chocolate but had already finished it off, and now she was crumpling up the wrapper for the straw she'd used to drink it. (Never mind that people didn't usually use straws for hot chocolate; Matt got the impression she might have done it that way just so she'd have something to fidget with.) Her gaze didn't stray from her lap, and her hair hung around her face in a curtain, hiding her expression. Her frame, still small even now that she was all grown up, seemed to curl in on itself. Apart from placing her order, she had remained silent the whole time they'd been at the coffee shop.

    She had seemed okay at first when he and Mohinder had found her in the upstairs bedroom of the Bennet household. Well, no, not  _ okay _ \--clearly she'd been terribly shaken up--but from almost the moment she laid eyes on them, she was grinning from ear to ear, and pretty soon all of them were crying and smiling as they held each other. It wasn't until they'd left the house, both to get some fresh air and because they just didn't want to spend any longer hanging around the home of someone they didn't know very well, that the high of their reunion had worn off. Without any idea of where to go from there, they had climbed inside Matt's car, with him sitting in the backseat along with Molly at her request while Mohinder sat in the driver's seat.

    "Officer Parkman, I was so scared," Molly had whimpered into his shoulder, clutching the fabric of his jacket with tight fists. "I didn't remember if you had survived… I remembered losing a family, and I thought it might have been you and Mohinder."

    "Hey, now, it's okay," Matt had murmured, pulling Molly in close to him and gently stroking her hair. As her words sunk in, though, he had blinked in confusion, his hand coming to a stop atop her head. "Wait, what do you mean? Did you--" He'd pulled back to hold her at arm's length, brow furrowing as he held her puffy-eyed gaze. "Did you lose your memories somehow?"

    Molly had nodded, gulping back tears and raising her hands to rub them away from her cheeks. Somehow, seeing her look so scared and sad was even worse now that she was an adult. Back when she was a little girl, Matt had hoped that by saving her and looking out for her, he could help her through her trauma and guide her into a healthy, functional adulthood. But if she was now in her twenties, and her spirit was still so fragile, maybe the damage dealt to her all those years ago really was irreparable. Or maybe it could have been fixed if he'd just stuck by her side for longer back then, but in his abandonment of her he had failed.

    "I woke up without them a few months ago," she'd said. Matt's eyes had widened at that, whereas Mohinder's had narrowed as he'd leaned toward her.

    "Just like what happened to Claire," he'd said. "That can't be a coincidence. You don't suppose…?"

    "When I was talking to Claire earlier, she said she thought she and I were working for the same people," Molly had confirmed. Mohinder had nodded, humming thoughtfully, and suddenly Matt had felt pretty far out of the loop.

    "Wait, but didn't Claire waking up without memories happen after her death and resurrection?" he had asked. "Nothing like that happened with you."

    Molly had winced, hunching up her shoulders and looking away almost as if she felt guilty. She'd mumbled something Matt hadn't been able to make out; a glance at Mohinder had revealed he was grimacing.

    "Matthew, you have to understand," he had begun slowly, reaching out to lay a hand on Matt's arm. "I would have told you, if you'd asked. It just didn't come up in the time we were together--and it was so lovely to be with you, I didn't want to ruin it by bringing up such a tragedy…"

    And so he had gone on to explain, and Matt had sat and listened, heart and mind progressively numbing with every word. As Mohinder spoke, Matt couldn't tear his eyes away from Molly, her hands now folded in her lap and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. As if the fact that she had died wasn't proof enough, the fact that Matt was only learning of her death now drove the point home. He had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, failed her. He had let a lot of people down during his lapse onto a more crooked path, but Molly? He hadn't just let her down, he'd (figuratively speaking) punted her off a goddamn cliff. The little girl who he had once seen as a surrogate daughter had died without him being there to protect her. Without him even  _ knowing _ . And now she was miraculously returned from the dead, no thanks to him of course, and she was as scared and fragile as ever, because how was her psyche ever supposed to mend properly when handled so carelessly?

    Now, as the sorrow and self-loathing stirred within him, Matt took another long sip of his coffee. The brew was god-awful as far as he was concerned--bitter enough to trigger his gag reflex--but he choked it down nonetheless. It wasn't like he deserved anything better.

    "…However, there have been recorded cases of superhuman abilities going as far back as the 17th century," Mohinder was saying when Matt tuned back in. "Now, there was one notable account of a solar eclipse occurring shortly before a legendary samurai's abilities manifested, but historical confirmation of that man's existence is hard to come by. In any case, any perceived connection between eclipses and the manifestation of powers would seem to be correlation rather than causation."

    "Then how do you explain everyone losing their powers during that other eclipse?" Matt asked, out of equal parts genuine curiosity and the desire to draw Mohinder's attention back toward him.

    "That's something I'm still trying to get to the bottom of," Mohinder admitted. "At this point, it stands as yet another of life's great mysteries."

    It was obvious that he recognized how unsatisfying his answer was, because he lapsed into silence, taking another sip of his tea while glancing back and forth as if to gauge the others' reactions. Not wanting to encourage further scientific ramblings, Matt took the opportunity to drink some more of his overly bitter coffee. On the other side of the table, Molly coughed and shifted in her seat.

    "Um, can we go now?" she asked. "I know you wanted to talk with your friend, but I think I'd like to go…" She paused, glancing between Matt and Mohinder with a meaningful look in her eyes. "…With you. Can we?"

    What she didn't say was,  _ Can I go  _ home  _ with you? _ but it was easy enough to fill in the blank. A familiar emotion tugged at Matt's heart--the urge to love and protect--mixed with a twang of nostalgia for the time when the three of them had briefly become a family. He wasn't so sure he deserved another chance at being her protector, but apparently nobody else had done a very good job in his absence, so if it was what she wanted then by god he would try his best.

    He nodded in response to her request, reaching out to lay his hand atop hers. Mohinder did the same almost simultaneously, and his fingers slid between Matt's in a motion that summoned a fluttering warmth into Matt's stomach. (That was another thing they would have to resolve sooner or later--what the hell the state of their relationship was supposed to be--but it could wait until their little girl was permanently safe and secure.)

    "We can leave right now, if you'd like," Mohinder told her. Then, looking over to where Noah was perched on the edge of the seat: "I hope you don't mind; it's been lovely catching up with you."

    "Huh? No, I don't mind at all," Noah said. His distracted tone as he looked over his shoulder at a table across the room said it all. "You three can take your leave, and I'll just…"

    He trailed off, getting up and wandering across the coffeeshop. Matt followed his trajectory to see a middle-aged woman and a young boy--maybe around college age--moving to meet him in the middle. Once Noah intercepted them, the young boy laid a hand on his and the woman's shoulders, and they disappeared in a flash of light. Matt figured that must have been Tommy, the kid Noah had just been on the phone with. With that party having gone their own way, he turned his attention back to his own companions, giving Molly's hand a reassuring squeeze.

    "Where would you like to go?" he asked her--both of them, really--as they were walking out of the coffeeshop hand in hand. He had his spare hand tucked into his jacket pocket, while Mohinder walked on the other side of Molly, holding her hand in one hand and his cup of tea in the other. "I've been living the trailer life myself, but assuming someone among us has the money to book a room at a hotel, that could change."

    "Your trailer  _ is _ rather cramped," Mohinder agreed with a slight chuckle. "And there are only two beds, so either someone would have to sleep in the car or… well." He cleared his throat, his cheeks darkening slightly. "It just wouldn't be practical, really."

    Molly scrunched up her nose at that remark, but she didn't comment on it. "A hotel would be okay," she said. "Actually, Malina and I booked one for our return trip before we left her college. But we only have it booked for tomorrow night, and I don't know if we can drive all the way there tonight…"

    "Well, if that's the case…" Matt raised his eyebrows at Mohinder; were it not for Molly standing between them, he might have given him a teasing shoulder-nudge. "Maybe the trailer is the best option for tonight, and we'll just have to figure out a way to make it work."

    "Now, Matthew," Mohinder chided, shaking his head while regarding him with a fond smile. "Don't be a scoundrel."

    "You two could sleep in the trailer and I could sleep in the car," Molly offered.

    "No way," Matt said firmly. "That thing's an old model; the heating in it is pretty hit-or-miss. But we should head back to the trailer," he added, "to feed Aristurtle."

    "Ah, yes, we can't abandon your pet tortoise," Mohinder agreed. "I suppose we can return to your trailer and work things out from there."

    A thin layer of snow crunched under their boots as they walked down the sidewalk, reflecting the sunlight around them. A few people stopped to glance curiously at them as they walked past; a grown woman walking hand in hand with two older men wasn't necessarily something you'd expect to see. Not letting self-consciousness diminish his affection for his surrogate daughter, Matt tightened his grip on Molly's hand. It was cold compared to his own, and her cheeks were flushed pink. That colour in her face, even though it was brought on by the low temperature, served as a steady reminder that she was alive. Through some long string of miracles, he'd been granted a second chance to keep her safe. And he swore to himself on that snow-dusted sidewalk that he would never let her down again.

* * *

    Miko's thumbs moved swiftly over the keypad on her phone screen as she once again dialed her employee's number, phone clutched in her hand as tightly as her teeth were gritted. Her legs ached for her to stop and rest--although she was decently athletic, it wasn't every day she sprinted across town to the general hospital at 4:26 in the morning--but she didn't dare slow down for a moment. After all, it also wasn't every day that, less than half an hour after getting a text from her friend saying he was at the hospital, she had seen a news article about a  _ zombie attack  _ at the very same building. She could slow down once she had assured the safety of her friend.

    The phone rang four times before going to voicemail:  _ "This is Micah Sanders. Some people know me as Rebel or Hero Truther. If you want to talk to me, leave a message and I'll get back to you later." _ Miko swore under her breath as the phone beeped. Having already left three voicemails and a handful of texts with no response, she pressed the "end call" button and tucked her phone back into her shoulder bag. The worry pricking at her skin grew stronger, joined by an uneasy turning sensation in her gut. She didn't want to think about why Micah wasn't responding, but it didn't take much thinking for her mind to supply plenty of possible reasons--or rather, a hundred variations on the same reason.

    Swallowing down the anxiety climbing up her throat, she narrowed her eyes, gazed fixed on the tall off-white building that loomed in the near distance. The sky was still dark, but gradually lightening; soon it would light up with colour. The hospital was only a few blocks away now. If she didn't slow down--if she wasn't already too late--maybe she could get there in time. She  _ had _ to get there in time. What she would do once she got there… well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. (Would they even let her in the building with a katana strapped to her back?)

    Miko was so caught up in her thoughts that, upon coming to an intersection, she nearly ran right into traffic. The roar of an eighteen-wheeler inches away from her ear startled her back to her senses; heart pounding, she backed up onto the sidewalk as the truck rushed by in front of her. Without stopping to fix her ruffled hair, she glanced back and forth across the road before bolting across. From there it was down the next stretch of sidewalk to another intersection--this time she was able to make it there at a green light, so no traffic--another stretch of sidewalk, and then one more road to cross before she reached her destination.

    As she approached, the sound of police sirens caught her ear; when the hospital parking lot came into view, she was mildly startled but not too shocked to find that the whole area was barricaded by a line of police cars. Parked alongside them was a news van with several reporters scattered across the lot, aiming their cameras at a pair of men standing at the base of the building. Following the gaze of the camera operators, Miko realized that the bricks at the top corner of the building had crumbled away, and now lay in a smoldering pile atop what looked like corpses. She shuddered at the sight, although she supposed it made sense considering the whole "zombie" thing described by the news article she'd seen. The pavement of the lot was rife with small craters, some of which were currently smoking; an odd scent hung in the air that Miko was disturbed to recognize as the smell of burning flesh.

    "It looks as though the defenders have neutralized the threat," one of the reporters was saying, flashing her chrome-white teeth at the camera as she stood by the corner of the building. The two men standing over the fallen pile of bricks and the corpses pinned beneath them now appeared to be in conversation. "We still have no definitive answer on whether or not those were the only two zombies, but staff and patients inside the building are being evacuated just in case. Despite the damage to the building, the affected area was supposedly unoccupied at the time of its destruction; so far, no casualties have been reported."

    As the news reporter was talking, Miko edged closer to the scene, crouching between the news van and one of the police cars. After pausing for a moment to think it over, she crept around the barricade of vehicles to the other side of the building, where there weren't any onlookers to potentially try to stop her from going in. There wasn't a front door on that wall of the building, but there was a fire escape. Upon coming up to the base of the building, she drew in a deep breath, readying herself for whatever she would find inside. Then she took a running charge onto the fire escape, her boots clanging against the zigzagging metal steps as she ran up them two at a time.

    She was short on breath by the time she reached the top of the fire escape--the fifth floor--and came face to face with a metal door. She pulled it open and ran inside, which brought her out into a long, empty hallway. As the door swung shut behind her, Miko stopped to catch her breath, squinting as she looked up and down the hall.

    "Micah-kun?" she called tentatively.

    The only response she got was her voice echoing back at her. Brow creasing with worry, she stepped out into the hall.  _ Left or right?  _ The rows of doors stretching down either side were identical. At the end of each hall were signs pointing toward other wings. Miko wracked her brain trying to recall whether Micah had specified which room he was in, but she came up empty. Just to be sure, she took her phone out of her bag--still no replies to the concerned messages she'd sent him--and scrolled up to their exchange from a few minutes earlier. All his message said was  _ "at the hospital w/ tracy. shes healed + awake now." _ Sighing, she tucked her phone away and headed off down the hall toward the left.

    Her anxiety grew greater and greater each time she called out for her friend, only to be met with silence. Occasionally she paused to knock on one of the doors, but that too garnered no response. She guessed that most of the patients who hadn't already been evacuated were asleep, since it was still basically the middle of the night--although there weren't any medical staff around either, so maybe this wing had already been evacuated? Upon reaching the end of the hallway, she peered around the corner to see if the adjacent hall was equally as empty. It was, at least at first. Then, just as she was about to turn around to backtrack and see if anything lay to the right of the door she'd come in through, a sudden shimmer halfway down the hallway caught her eye. Blinking in surprise, Miko stepped forward to see a watery figure emerge from the floor and take the shape of a blonde woman in a hospital gown.

    Her heart skipped a beat at the sight, and for a moment fear rushed through her, doubled when the woman turned and locked eyes with Miko. Then, taking a closer look, she realized who it was, and she exhaled, shoulders slumping with relief. If Tracy was unharmed, Micah must have been okay too, right?

    "Tracy-san," she called, running down the hall toward her. "It's good to see you back on your feet!"

    Tracy raised her eyebrows, a momentary confusion passing over her face before recognition dawned in her eyes.

    "Ah, you're Micah's friend, aren't you?" she asked. Miko nodded; pursing her lips, Tracy glanced up and down the hall. "I don't suppose you've seen him?"

    "You mean he isn't with you?"

    Even as she said it, she knew it was a stupid question--it was plain to see that Micah wasn't there.  _ So where is he? _

    "He was," Tracy said. "But then we were attacked by some sort of… they looked like zombies. He had to run out into the hall to avoid one of my ice attacks, but one of the zombies followed him out into the hall, and the door was frozen shut." She paused, glancing over her shoulder with a troubled frown. "I had already taken care of the other zombie, but the remaining one circled back around and I had to get out of there. The room we were in was in this wing, but I've been looking around and I can't find the kid anywhere."

    "What?" Miko narrowed her eyes, glancing around the hallway once again as though expecting Micah to step out through one of the doors at any moment. Of course her friend didn't appear, and the worry brewing into her gut grew to a harshly clenching fear. "Is he--do you know if he had his phone on him?"

    "Yeah, about that…" Tracy sighed, producing a frozen-solid cellphone from the pocket of her hospital gown.

    Miko cringed at the sight, but at the same time, it reignited a spark of hope within her. Maybe Micah had gotten out alright, but he wasn't able to contact her or Tracy because he didn't have his phone. Especially seeing as he was a foreigner staying by himself at a hotel, it wasn't like he would have easy access to any other phones either. Maybe he was even back in his hotel room already. The distress gnawing at her gut told her otherwise, but she did her best to ignore that, clenching her jaw and tightening her hands into fists at her sides.

    "Well, let's keep looking for him," she decided. "You can go that way--" She jerked her head in the direction she'd come from. "And I'll go the other way."

    Tracy nodded. Her gaze lingered on Miko for a moment as they walked off in their separate directions, boring into her as though trying to figure something out--maybe she was curious about the sword. However, she quickly took her eyes off her and diverted her attention to the empty hallway stretching before her, and so too did Miko as she headed forward.

    "Micah-kun!" She raised her voice, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Are you here?"

    Once again, no response. The knot of dread tightening within her, she moved toward a random door. As she raised her hand to knock against the sleek steel surface, a sudden chill breeze made her shiver. She paused. Remembering what Tracy had said about a door being frozen shut, her gaze crept to two doors over, where the walls and floor around it were damp with slowly melting frost. Miko moved slowly and cautiously to stand outside the frozen-shut door, goosebumps rising on her skin both from the cold air that surrounded it and the fear of alerting any undead abominations that lurked within. After a moment's hesitation, she leaned forward to press her ear against the door, wincing at how cold it was against her skin. She waited a moment, holding her breath, but no sounds came from beyond the door. Either there were no zombies in that room at the moment, or the zombies were being very still. Either way, Micah was once again nowhere to be found. Gulping, Miko backed away from the door and turned to carry on down the hall.

    Before she could walk away, something in her periphery caught her eye. She turned around to see a dark red smear on the wall opposite the frozen-shut door, and droplets of the same colour speckled on the floor.

    "Oh my god…" A sick churning feeling rose in Miko as she knelt down, clasping one hand over her mouth while extending the other to brush her fingers against the blood on the wall. Indeed, blood was unmistakably what it was--and there was a lot of it, a big blotch coating the wall as though someone had knocked over a can of paint. Heart speeding up, she whipped her gaze back and forth down the empty hallway. "Micah-kun! Micah, where are you?!"

    Her voice came out shrill enough to make her cringe, but it matched the rising panic she felt. Zombies didn't bleed, did they? Obviously nobody had ever encountered one in real life before, as far as she knew, but it didn't make sense for the undead to bleed. Sucking in a shaky breath, Miko got to her feet and ran back down the hall the way she'd come, rounding the corner and passing by the door to the fire escape to reach where Tracy was standing by the far end of the hall. Tracy turned around at Miko's approach, her face tight with worry.

    "What is it?" she asked. "You didn't--you didn't find him, did you?"

    Miko shook her head, taking a moment to catch her breath and try to steady it. "N-no, but…" She looked Tracy up and down, scanning desperately for the sign of any wounds. "You didn't get injured while fighting the zombies at all, did you?"

    "No, I got lucky on that account," she said. "They barely even seemed interested in me. Why do you ask?"

    "Because…" The words stuck in her throat, as though saying them aloud would confirm the implied connection between the presence of the blood and the absence of her friend. "I found--there was--in the hallway, there was blood on the wall and floor."

    "Shit," Tracy hissed. With a grim expression, she glanced up and down the hall before reaching out and clamping her hands down on Miko's shoulders. "We've gotta get outside."

    Miko was puzzled to feel her shoulders grow damp beneath Tracy's hands, and more so when a strange rippling sensation spread through her body. She watched with growing bewilderment as Tracy's body--and, as she discovered upon looking down at herself, her own--grew translucent and watery. Her yell of alarm was drowned out as they sank through the floor. Air rushed by around her, and the next thing she knew, they were resolidifying out in the parking lot.

    "What the hell was that?" she gasped as soon as she had a solid mouth to speak with again.

    Tracy hastily retracted her hands from her shoulders and turned away without offering any explanation. Indignant, Miko shook her hands to flick water droplets off herself, only to find that she was perfectly dry. With a confused frown, she stepped forward, opening her mouth to demand an explanation. Her words died on her tongue, however, when her eyes landed on what Tracy was looking at.

    An ambulance was parked outside now along with the police cars. Outside its doors, people were crowded around, including several people dressed in medical garb. One of the men who'd been battling the zombies earlier stood off to the side, herding a crowd of fretting civilians away from the cluster of medical professionals, while the other man crouched down next to a surgeon over a stretcher. At first she expected to see other stretchers laid out around it, but it was the only one. That would have been a relief were it not for the person laying on it. The surgeon and the strange man shouted to each other in English, rising urgency in their voices muffled by medical masks, passing implements back and forth between themselves and a nurse who was standing by. Across the lot, the newscaster chattered on with as much enthusiasm as ever.

    "Luckily, the hospital has been searched over and only the one casualty has been found. Doctors are on the scene trying to save the patient, a young foreign man, but his injury appears to be fatal."

    "No!"

    The word sprang from Miko like a clap of thunder, turning the eyes of the gathered civilians toward her. Her mind was blank, awash with a blinding panic, as her legs carried her across the lot. She pushed past the nurses that moved to try to block her, and she barely registered the shouts of protest that sprang up around her. Her senses were laser-focused on the sight of Micah, laid out on the stretcher on the ground. His eyes were closed, his complexion washed out, and he wore a breathing mask. The rise and fall of his chest was slow and irregular. And on the left side of his chest--right where his lung would have been--was a ragged, bloody hole the size of a fist.

    Miko's mind spun as she ran to her friend's side. The surgeon stood up and moved to try to stop her, but the other man held out his arm to hold him back, saying something in a low tone of voice. She sank to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes, and brushed her fingertips over his gaping wound.  _ How did this happen?  _ she thought, although the cause should have been obvious with what she knew of the events that had just unfurled. Then,  _ what can I do? _

    That thought was followed by a sudden shock of clarity, like a ray of sun breaking through stormclouds. Curling one hand firmly around the collar of Micah's shirt, she raised her other hand behind her and wrapped it around the handle of her sword. The doctor cried out in protest, lunging to apprehend her, but she drew the blade with a decisive  _ shing!  _ before he could reach her. And just like that, the cold air and the faint scent of burning asphalt vanished from around her, replaced first by a white void and then by a field of green as the virtual world rendered.

    Miko drew in a shaky breath, the hilt of her sword grasped tightly in one hand while the other clutched at her friend's wounded chest. His blood soaked through his shirt and onto her hand, and as blood seeped out of him, so too did the warmth from his body. She held her breath, biting down on her lip to keep it from trembling, and she prayed that her desperate attempt to save him would succeed.

    Micah's chest rose in a barely detectable shuddering motion, and then it sank back down with an exhale that was amplified by the transparent mask that covered his nose and mouth… and then he didn’t breathe in again. Although he was already laying flat against the ground, unmoving, his body suddenly seemed limper than it had been a moment ago. His head lolled slightly to one side. Blood kept pouring out of him, pooling on the simulated grass around Miko's knees, but his skin was cool to the touch. And when she moved her hand to the other side of his chest, pressing her trembling fingertips against the bloodstained fabric of his shirt, there was no trace of a heartbeat.

    Dismay fell upon her in a torrential wave, wrenching a choked-back sob from her throat. She didn't even know why she was crying. She hadn't known him for long, and they had only had a professional relationship. Why was it only now, when teardrops fell from her eyes and splashed onto his lifeless face, that she realized how deeply she had already come to care for him?

    It was with much reluctance that she backed away from her friend's body, picking up her sword from where she'd discarded it in the grass next to her. She didn't want to just leave him there, but at the same time, if she rematerialized in the real world holding his dead body after having lunged toward him while drawing her sword… well, it was obvious what conclusion the cops would come to. (For a moment she wondered if the doctors from the parking lot would have been able to save him, but… no. Not with a gaping hole where one of his vital organs had been torn out.) Drawing in a deep breath in an attempt to collect herself, she raised her hand to her face to wipe away her tears, only to stop at the last moment when she remembered her hand was covered in blood. And now she'd gotten blood on her sword handle as well, and on her jeans, and…

      She was so caught up in misery that she almost didn't notice when Micah's body flickered in and out of existence. Blinking, she leaned down over him with a reignited flicker of hope in her chest. After momentarily disappearing a few times in rapid succession, his body--still unmoving, still with the hole in his chest--reappeared. But, sure enough, that ragged, bloody wound also flickered and disappeared. Pixel by pixel, the gap was filled in by replenished tissue until he was whole again.

    And then he took a breath. It was more of a wheeze, really--scratchy and belaboured, echoing against the plastic of his breathing mask--but it was accompanied by a heave of his no longer mangled chest. Drawing in a gasp, Miko pressed her fingers against the side of his neck. She could feel a pulse beneath her fingertips, small and fluttering at first but quickly growing stronger, and she could feel the warmth seeping back into him like a computer heating up after being turned on. She let out a high-pitched, breathy laugh as the tension released from her muscles, breaking into a smile.

    "Oh, thank god," she whispered, brushing her hand across his cheek. "It worked after all."

    Micah's eyelids twitched upon her touch, and he groaned, lifting his head and blinking open his eyes.

    "Miko?" His voice was bleary, and muffled beneath the mask he wore. He coughed and cleared his throat, then propped himself up on his elbows and reached up to take the mask off. Once he'd removed it, he looked up to meet Miko's gaze, looking at her with something like amazement. "Did… did you save me?"

    "I--" She hesitated, suddenly all too aware of the mere inches separating her from Micah. A bit of warmth seeped into her own skin as she sat up and leaned back, putting a little more space between them. "It was the game's programming that saved you, really. I had no idea if it would even work."

    "Oh, shit, you mean I'm inside your video game right now?" He moved to sit up, only to stop with a pained wince. With a pang of concern, Miko placed her hand on his back to help him up; he smiled gratefully at her before turning to look around the grassy field. "Wow. This is… this is really cool."

    "Thank you," she replied, for lack of anything more appropriate to say.

    He raised an eyebrow at that, giving her a bemused glance, but thankfully didn't tease her. Instead, he took her hand, bending his legs under him to stand up. She followed his silent request and helped him to his feet; once they were standing up, he leaned against her slightly, keeping his hand in hers. She tried not to think too hard about that; it made sense that his body would still be weak even after respawning with his fatal injury healed. Just because the hole in his chest had been filled in and his lung presumably restored (he didn't seem to be having trouble breathing) that didn't mean he hadn't retained any tissue damage.

    "Now, this isn't a situation where I'll die if I leave the game world, is it?" Micah asked. "Because I'd love to hang out here and explore for a bit if you want, but I'd also like to go back to where I was before so I can make sure Tracy's okay."

    "Your aunt is fine," she assured him. "And don't worry, we can leave anytime you want."

    Micah hummed thoughtfully to himself as he took another look around. There wasn't a whole lot to look at, really, aside from the solid platforms hovering off the ground here and there. This was the starting area of the game, with a grassy field stretching out on all sides and a blank blue sky above. She supposed the floating platforms would have been fascinating to someone who had never been inside the game before, but to her it was nothing to write home about.

    "I guess we can leave now," Micah decided after a moment. "But can we come back here sometime?"

    Miko nodded. His choice of words stirred up a faint pleasant sensation within her. Not  _ can you take me back?  _ but  _ can we come back? _ Maybe she was reading too much into it, but that almost made it sound like he specifically wanted to be there with her.

    "We can come back anytime you want," she told him. Then, tightening her grip on his hand just because she was glad to feel the warmth of his fingers pressed between hers: "Let's go."

* * *

    To be honest, Ando hadn't expected Hiro to still be there when he woke up in the morning. He had dreamed about his husband coming home before, and although it had seemed a lot more real this time, the simple fact of Hiro being there again after being gone for so long seemed too good to be true. And yet the first thing he felt when he woke up was the warmth of Hiro's arms wrapped around him, and the weight of his body pressed against him. Blinking open his eyes, he turned his head to the side to see Hiro, illuminated by the morning light shining in through the window. He was still sleeping, it seemed, snuggled up against Ando's chest with his head nestled in the crook of his neck and softly snoring. Ando's chest swelled with emotion upon seeing him, taking in the warm rosiness of his cheeks and the steady rise and fall of his chest. Part of him wanted to shake Hiro awake and ask him to pinch him, so he'd be sure he wasn't dreaming. But how could he dare disturb a man sleeping so peacefully?

    This little dilemma resolved itself quickly enough, as Hiro yawned, rolling over onto his back and stretching his arms behind him like a cat in a sunbeam. He blinked his eyes open and gave Ando a sleepy smile, a bit bleary-eyed without his glasses on. His clothes were a bit wrinkled--it looked like an outfit he had borrowed from Kimiko, which he supposed made sense, since they were at her house. He realized that this must have been the important thing Kimiko had been about to tell him the night before, and suddenly felt stupid for not letting her tell him. Then again, without having tangible proof of Hiro's miraculous return, he probably wouldn't have believed her.

    "Good morning, honey," Hiro said. He sat up, brushing his tousled hair out of his eyes. "Did you sleep well?"

    "You…" Ando blinked, still half-expecting Hiro to disappear the moment he looked away. "You're really here, aren't you? You're really back?"

    "Of course I am. Why would I come back just to take off again?" Hiro asked. He grabbed his glasses from where they were folded at the foot of the futon and put them on. They looked like a pair he had worn as a kid; unsurprisingly, they were a little small on him, and he frowned as he tried to adjust them into position. "Or, wait, you think I might be an illusion. Maybe a bad guy in disguise, trying to trick you? But no, it's really me!"

    He gave Ando a big grin, spreading his arms wide as though to say  _ Ta-da, here I am! _ Ando couldn't help but smile at that, and his lingering doubt gradually dispersed, replaced by sheer fondness. How he had ever survived so long without his husband, he had no idea.

    "Well, Hiro," he said, sitting up and leaning over to gently pinch Hiro's cheek, "it's really good to see you again. I missed you."

    He knew his earnest words clashed with the teasing gesture, but Hiro didn't seem to mind. Bringing his hands up to wrap them around Ando's, he pressed a kiss to his knuckles as though he were a knight courting a nobleman.

    "I missed you too," he said, his eyes wide and shimmering with emotion behind the slightly dirty lenses of his undersized glasses. "Every single day. I really wanted to see you, and one time I almost entered a lottery to win a plane trip to Tokyo, but Anne talked me out of it because…"

    He trailed off, gaze dropping as his bright smile was replaced by a guilty-looking frown; Ando wondered if he’d involuntarily flinched at the mention of Anne. Hiro's fingers brushed across the wedding ring Ando had kept wearing for years after giving up hope of him ever returning. Looking down at his husband's hands, clasped so tenderly around his own, he realized with an unpleasant pang that Hiro wasn't wearing his ring. Had it just gotten lost at some point, or…?

    "Um, I'm really glad I was finally able to come home," Hiro mumbled. Ando didn't doubt that much for a moment, but the certainty of his husband's love wasn't enough to quell the uneasy stirring of envy in his gut. After an awkward moment that seemed to stretch on forever, Hiro's head snapped up and he stared intently at Ando. "Wait. How much do you know about what happened while I--well, not  _ while  _ I was gone, but--during the first year after I disappeared I was trapped in a video game, and then after I was released, did you know what happened after that?"

    "…Yeah, I know about Tommy," Ando replied. (His brow furrowed at the mention of being trapped in a video game, because he was pretty sure nobody had told him about that part, but that was probably a discussion for another time.) "And I'm not--I'm not  _ jealous  _ that you got remarried or anything. You've fallen in love with other people before, and it's like… whatever makes you happy, right?"

    Hiro narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, and Ando wondered if he was able to see through his lie. His skin burned with shame at the fact that it  _ was  _ a lie, that he  _ was  _ jealous--he didn't hold it against Hiro, nor the woman he had fallen in love with, but he couldn't help the unpleasant sensation he felt when he thought about his husband falling for someone else. Before Hiro could pry into that canister of difficult emotions, Ando got to his feet and stretched, which wasn't something he normally did in the morning when not trying to distract his husband from an issue at hand.

    "So, I can try and make breakfast for us," he offered. "I know I'm not the best at it, as you've told me many times…"

    "You should really just stick to toaster waffles, dear," Hiro interjected as he stood up and ran his hands down his rumpled clothes to smooth them out.

    "But I've gotten better," he lied. "So what do you say I cook you up something from scratch?"

    Hiro nodded, and they made their way down the hall to the kitchen. Kimiko was there when they walked in, looking through her well-stocked and neatly organized cupboards. She glanced over her shoulder at their approach, and when she saw them standing together, she blinked in surprise. After pulling a cereal box out of the cupboard and setting it down on the counter, she turned to face them; Ando took her fairly nonchalant reaction as confirmation that she was already aware of Hiro's return.

    "Oh, good, you're back," she addressed Hiro with a relieved smile. "What were you doing last night?"

    "I was… helping out a friend," Hiro said, with the cryptic tone of someone who was about to turn and wink at an invisible camera. With that, he stepped forward to look through the open cupboard, leaning across the countertop to reach the highest shelf.

    Kimiko narrowed her eyes. "What does that mean? Do  _ you  _ know what he means?" she asked, turning to Ando.

    "No idea," Ando sighed. As he stood back and watched Hiro rummage through the cupboard, occasionally pulling out a box only to sigh in disappointment and put it back upon seeing that it was a package of uncooked rice or oatmeal, the flash of envy he'd felt earlier dissipated and was replaced by a fond bemusement. "But does it really matter? Isn't it enough that he's back?"

    "I guess so," Kimiko said, crossing her arms and giving her brother a sideways glance. "But I would rather know what he was up to."

    "Don't worry about it," Hiro told her. Then, in a more serious tone as he closed the cupboard and turned his attention back to his sister: "Liu-san will tell you about it if she wants, but I believe it was a private matter for her."

    "Liu?" Ando echoed, glancing at Kimiko with raised eyebrows. "That's a foreign name, isn't it? Who is that?"

    "She's my girlfriend," Kimiko explained. "I've told you about her, haven't I?"

    "I don't know that you have," he replied. Actually, now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure Kimiko had ever told him she was dating anyone. And, really, why would she have? It wasn't like they were close enough to tell each other everything about their social lives. "Uh, how long have you been seeing her?"

    "Our first date was last month, but we started going steady a couple weeks ago." She paused, a fond smile creeping onto her face. "It doesn't surprise me that she would get along with Hiro. She has a very bright personality--easy to get along with, but there's a lot of depth beneath that sparkling surface."

    "Oh, yes, she seems very nice," Hiro agreed, bobbing his head up and down. There was something a little off about the gesture--it seemed almost reflexive moreso than a genuine agreement. Then again, Hiro was hard to read sometimes; even after knowing him for so long, knowing him better than anyone, Ando still couldn't tell what was going on in his head half the time. So he tried not to read too much into it, although he made a mental note to ask Hiro about his real thoughts on Kimiko's new girlfriend when they were in private.

    "Well, if you were with Ji Woo, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," Kimiko said decisively. "And I'm glad you respect her privacy. Now, if you two will excuse me," she went on, moving toward the fridge, "I need to be at work in a little under an hour, so let's not dawdle too much, hmm?"

    "Right, of course," Ando agreed. He turned back to Hiro, who had shifted back toward him during the discussion and was now standing at his side as though he had never left. "So, I know I said I would cook you something…"

    "You don't have to if you're not up to the task," Hiro assured him, casually laying a hand on Ando's arm as he spoke. "We can just have toast, or cereal like she's having."

    "Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Ando agreed, rubbing the back of his head with a light self-deprecating chuckle. "But I'll take you out for dinner or something later, okay?"

    "That sounds lovely," Hiro said. He brushed his hand down along Ando's arm to take his hand instead. "Thank you, dear."

    Lacing their fingers together, Hiro closed his eyes and raised himself onto his tiptoes to kiss Ando on the forehead. Ando's heart fluttered at the contact of Hiro's lips against his skin, as brief and chaste as it was. He had missed that sensation dearly. The fact that Hiro was really there again, right in front of him, touching him and smiling up at him with an immense fondness in his gaze… every time the realization hit him again, it filled Ando with a rush of exhilaration.

    "I love you so much," he murmured, bringing his free hand--the one Hiro wasn't already clasping in his own--up to cup the side of Hiro's face.

    Hiro leaned forward as though drawn to him, sinking partway back down to his heels but still partially up on his toes, so that their faces were almost perfectly lined up. His eyes darted down toward Ando's lips, then back up to meet his gaze. He shifted slightly, cheeks growing rosy, and licked his lips--a tiny gesture that would be easy to miss for someone not currently transfixed by the relevant facial features. Ando wasn't sure why his heart was thudding, and why he moved so tentatively to close the gap between himself and Hiro. This was far from his first time making such an action. They were  _ married,  _ after all. Still, when they were back together again after being apart for longer than they had ever been before, everything felt a little bit like they were doing it for the first time all over again.

    Hiro squeezed Ando's hand as he leaned in to kiss him, and he cleared his throat nervously. Just before their lips could brush together, he cleared his throat again, a little louder and more pointedly this time. Ando paused, blinking in confusion; Hiro drew back slightly, his cheeks now burning a bright pink.

    "'Please, Captain'," he said in English, speaking in a deeper-than-usual voice that Ando could only assume was an impression of someone. "'Not in front of the Klingons'."

    "Not in front of the…?" Ando followed Hiro's gaze to see Kimiko standing by the doorframe, holding a bowl of cereal with the spoon raised halfway to her mouth. "Oh."

    Blushing, he stepped away from Hiro, who adjusted his glasses before scurrying away to look in the fridge. Kimiko chuckled wryly and went on eating her cereal without comment, which Ando was beyond grateful for. On some level, he thought she must have understood, especially now that she was dating someone. Love really did make people forget their surroundings sometimes.

    A few minutes later, once Hiro had made himself some toast and Ando had brewed up a cup of coffee (Kimiko had already made some upon getting up, but it was decaf) it was time for Kimiko to head off to work. She tossed Ando her spare key as she left, although she recommended that he and Hiro try to lay low for the day--" _ One of you _ is still technically a murder suspect," she reminded them with a pointed look at Ando. And with that, she was out the door, leaving Hiro and Ando alone together with the whole day ahead of them.

    "So, um," Ando said once Kimiko had closed the door and locked it shut behind her. "What do you want to do?"

    "Hmm…" Hiro sat backwards on the couch, staring out the window intently. In his reflection on the glass, Ando could see that his brows were furrowed. After a moment, he turned around to face Ando. "I'd like to spend the day with you, but I should go see Tommy to let him know I'm alive. Would you want to come with me for that?"

_ Oh. Right _ . Ando hesitated to reply, trying not to show the pang of disappointment that came with the realization that, yes, of course Hiro would want to go see his kid. He wasn't sure about going with him, but he supposed it would be better than being by himself in someone else's empty house. Or, in broader terms, it would be better to go along with Hiro than to be left alone by him again. Then again… Tommy was with Anne at the moment, wasn't he? A prickle of discomfort rose in Ando's chest. Whatever Hiro's present feelings were toward the woman he'd married while in the past, and whatever those feelings would entail for their own future as a couple, Ando wasn't ready to find out just yet. And if he was there to see Hiro's reunion with his wife, there would be no way to delay the confrontation of those troublesome emotions. Besides, even if it was just Tommy that Hiro was going to see, wasn't that sort of a private matter? It didn't make much sense to bring along a guy who barely knew the kid.

    "Actually, I think you should go alone," Ando told him, although he had to suppress a grimace as he spoke. "I'll hold down the fort here, okay?"

    Nodding, Hiro leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry, I'll try to be quick."

    With that, he pulled away, squeezed his eyes shut, and vanished--once again out of sight and out of reach.

* * *

    The house was oddly quiet when Hiro appeared there. If his wife or son were home, normally he would have been able to hear them bustling about somewhere, but not even the faintest creak of floorboards from elsewhere in the house alerted him to their presence. A glance out the living room window revealed that Anne's car was still in the driveway--were they out on a walk, then?

    Trying to ignore a sudden prickling sensation on the back of his neck, he drew the curtains shut and stepped back from the window. Taking another look around the room, his gaze was drawn to a shattered vase on the floor next to the bookshelf, surrounded by dark red droplets that looked a worrying amount like blood. A few feet away, a candle was lying on the floor. Eyes narrowing, Hiro walked over to the fallen candle and knelt down to pick it up. Turning it over in his hand, he was surprised to discover that there was a big chunk of wax missing from one side, and it was covered with pale grayish flecks of something he couldn't identify.

    His puzzled frown deepening into one of downright bewilderment, he set the candle down on the top of the bookshelf, then headed into the kitchen for the dustpan and broom to take care of the glass. Anxiety stirred in his gut at the presence of the broken vase, but he told himself that the red specks on the floor might have been something else--maybe rose water, although he didn't think it was quite that colour. In any case, he couldn't just let there be a pile of broken glass on his--well, not necessarily  _ his _ anymore, but still--the living room floor.

    The kitchen appeared just as empty as the living room had been when he entered. Anne kept her dustpan tucked behind the trash bin, in the cupboard under the sink. He opened the cupboard and bent down to retrieve the dustpan, bracing himself for the inevitable ache of his muscles as he did so. To his amazement, though, he was able to squat down in front of the open cupboard with only a slight pop of his joints.  _ Oh, that's right _ , he thought as he reached behind the trash bin and pulled out the dustpan and broom.  _ I'm not old anymore.  _ Not that he'd been old before, per se, but definitely middle aged. It was strange to think that respawning back into the video game he'd previously been trapped in had essentially rewound the years he'd spent raising his son--not exactly restoring his youth, as he had already been in his thirties when the whole thing started, but it was still a significant difference in age. It almost made him wonder if Anne would even be willing to resume their relationship when she was now a good decade or so older than him. (The question of whether or not  _ he  _ wanted to resume their relationship wasn't something he was willing to examine at the moment. Thinking of the time he'd spent with her filled him with a painfully strong yearning, but in nearly every moment he had been with her, there had been an ever-present longing in his heart for someone else. If she and Ando would be up for both being married to him at once, he'd accept the offer, but he wouldn't count on having that option available to him.)

    Hiro was pulled from his introspection by the sudden creak of the floorboards behind him. The unexpected noise sent a shiver down his spine, and it deepened into a chill in his veins when the sound repeated, advancing slowly toward him. When you spend several years living in the same house as someone, you come to know the cadence of their footsteps. Those weren't the footsteps of his wife or son. Upon drawing in an apprehensive breath, Hiro noticed for the first time that there was a strange smell in the air--almost like rotting meat. He very slowly closed the cupboard doors and stood up, dustpan and broom in hand, and turned around to see…

    To say that it was himself wouldn't quite be accurate. He'd seen past and future versions of himself before, but this… this wasn't like that. An unpleasant hitching sensation, like he was standing in an elevator and it suddenly dropped, hit him when he stared into the glassy eyes of the figure staring back at him. It had the same facial structure as him, and it wore one of the suits he'd worn during his time raising Tommy--at least he thought it was the same suit, but it was hard to tell when the outfit was tattered and smeared with dirt--and, most strikingly, its bony fingers were curled around the handle of Hiro's sword. A sickening wave of dread swept over him when he saw the droplets of blood on the sword's rusted blade. Was this why the house was empty?

    The figure's shuffling advance toward him came to a stop, and it stood still a few feet away from Hiro. His first thought was to grab his own sword, but no--he'd left it behind at his sister's house. Of course he could just teleport away, but not without finding out what had happened. Balling his empty hand into a fist and tightening the other hand's grip on the dustpan, he narrowed his eyes at his sallow-skinned counterpart and took a step toward it.

    "Where is Tommy?" he demanded. "What did you do to him?"

    The corpselike version of him didn't respond. Its head was cocked, although he couldn't tell whether that was out of curiosity or if it was just lolling limply to the side. Maybe it wasn't sentient--maybe, Hiro realized with a shudder, it was a zombie. But if that was the case, was it patient zero… or had the infection already swept across America?

    Not letting himself dwell on thoughts like that for too long, Hiro extended his arm, pointing the dustpan toward the zombie while at the same time taking a furtive glance around the kitchen for something that would make a better weapon. The knife block was on the other end of the counter, several feet out of his reach; although zombies were usually slow in movies, he had seen a couple films with fast ones too, and he wasn't willing to take his chances. Swallowing down the rising panic building in his chest, he adjusted his glasses and took another step forward. If the zombie  _ was  _ sentient and just being difficult, he'd make sure it didn't realize he was scared of it.

    "I said, where is my son?" he said sharply. "There should have been a woman and a boy in this house. Where are they?"

    Again, no response. A flash of movement at the zombie's side caught Hiro's eye, and he watched as the zombie, in a jerky motion, swung its arm above its head, sword pointing toward the ceiling. Then, after a brief pause, it resumed its shuffle toward him.

    Hiro scrambled out of the way, biting back a yelp, as the zombie brought the sword down upon where he'd just been standing. The blade struck the countertop with a clang, sending up a spray of marble flecks and leaving a shallow intent in the surface. As the zombie dislodged the blade and prepared to strike again, he whacked it over the head with the dustpan. It flopped forward at the impact, letting out a grunt as its forehead connected with the faucet. While the zombie was stunned, Hiro lunged over to grab the biggest knife out of the block. Looking at the zombie from the side, he noticed a chunk of wax lodged in the back of its head amidst its matted chunks of graying hair. That explained the candle on the floor, then… although it still didn't explain what had happened to his family.

    "I'm giving you one last chance," he said sharply, pressing one hand down on the zombie's back to keep it pinned to the kitchen counter while brandishing the knife above its now quite dented head with the other. "Where are Anne and Tommy? What did you do to them?!"

    The zombie tilted its head toward him, jaw dangling half-open and eyes as blank as ever. It made no real move to break away from his grip, and didn't react at all to the knife. Frustrated, Hiro shoved it harder against the edge of the counter, but it didn't even flinch. Its arms hung loosely at its side, and although its fingers curled tight as ever around the sword, it didn't look like it planned to do much with it.

    "If you can think and speak, tell me now," he urged; he figured it was only fair to give it just one more opportunity. "I really mean it! I'll kill you if you don't start talking right now!"

    Even as he spoke the threat, knowing full well that it fell upon a pair of ears without a lick of sentience between them, the words  _ I'll kill you  _ sounded wrong coming from his mouth. It didn't help that it was an undead version of himself. Looking down at a ghastly reflection of his own face dulled his eagerness to put his knife to use, but if it really was a zombie, letting it walk free would prove disastrous. If it wasn't going to give him any answers--which, judging by its continued silence, it wasn't--then he wasn't going to waste any more time.

    Hiro screwed up his face, unwilling to watch the results of his actions, as he plunged the knife into the zombie's head. He could feel the knife sink easily into the half-rotted flesh, accompanied by a grisly groan from the zombie that didn't fall silent even after the crack of bones in its head. Even as his stomach churned and bile rose in his throat, he kept pushing the knife down, and then once the whole blade was pushed in he yanked it back out and thrust it into a lower part of the body--keeping his eyes screwed tightly shut, so he couldn't see exactly where the blade landed, but this time it was met with a little more resistance from the zombie's flesh. As he repeated the action once again, still not daring to look, the churning sensation in his gut turned to something cold that pierced him like a needle. It was a harsher sensation than expected, but one he gave little thought as he stabbed the zombie again and again. Its groans were growing softer now, its body convulsing with each thrust--and with each convulsion, he got another little jolt of that unpleasant feeling in his gut.

    With one final thrust of the knife into the zombie's back, he felt its form shudder and fall still beneath him. He gave the blade one final twist and then yanked the knife out, dropping it into the sink with a clatter. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, not quite masked by the corpse's rotten stench. That feeling in his gut hadn't gone away, although it had dulled now that the zombie had stopped moving, and he felt an awful sticky sensation building up inside him, clogging his throat and coating his tongue with a metallic--

_ Oh. _ That wasn't just physiological, was it?

    Sucking in a painful breath, Hiro opened his eyes and prayed that he wouldn't see what he thought he might see when he looked down at himself.

    The zombie's body was pretty well torn up, and a sickly sensation washed over him at the sight of it and the knowledge that he'd put the body in that state with his own hands. It slumped limply over the kitchen counter, head dangling into the sink where the knife lay, caked with sinew and bits of flesh. Despite the zombie's obvious state of defeat, it had yet to loosen its grip on the handle of Hiro's sword.

    The sword that was currently embedded in Hiro's stomach.

    "Ohh…" he whispered, running his hand along the side of the blade. Although it was now rusted and smeared with dirt, there was something comforting about touching his katana again. Reaching out, he gingerly uncurled his zombie version's fingers from around the hilt of the blade. With its grip released, the zombie's outstretched arm fell limply against the counter with a dull thud. Hiro laughed, not because that was the kind of thing he found funny (in a movie, sure, but not when it was an undead version of him who he'd just stabbed to re-death and had also stabbed him) but because the urge to laugh just hit him at that moment. The burst of laughter was accompanied by blood dribbling from between his lips.  _ Whoops, _ he thought in a moment of near-delirium.  _ That's not so good. _

    He could hardly even feel the blade's presence in his stomach anymore, and he almost had the notion that he could just pull it out and he'd be good as new… but no, he remembered Anne drilling in the point that extracting a blade was like getting stabbed a second time. Best to leave it in, then. Another laugh bubbled up from inside him and spilled out his lips along with more blood that ran down his chin and splashed onto the tile floors. And to think that he had only  _ just _ returned to the world of the living the day before.

    "Shit," he wheezed--both out of laughter and out of pain, which struck him in proper when he straightened his posture in an attempt to pull himself together. He took a staggering step back, no longer entirely sure where he was supposed to be going or what he was supposed to do. Mostly he just felt numb and vaguely cold. Then, as something else Anne had taught him about crossed his mind and he realized he was probably experiencing shock: "Oh,  _ fuck _ !"

    With that, he burst into another fit of laughter as his knees buckled under him and he collapsed onto the floor.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost memories are returning and separated family units are together again. Things would be looking up if it weren't for the strange undead attackers that have it out for our heroes. Claire finds herself in an environment that's too hot to handle. Peter & co. take stock of the situation. Tommy looks for his dad in all the wrong places.

_     It was like a scene right out of a movie. Car parked on the shoulder of a dirt road with empty fields rolling out for miles in either direction. Windows rolled up, bright sun reflecting off the glass from overhead. Muffled music blasting from inside, where a borrowed cellphone lay facedown on the dashboard. _

__ I can't stop, _ the singer lamented over and over to the beat of Claire's pounding heart.  _ You're too much.

_     "God, it's hot in here," she moaned. Tilting her head back, she combed her hands through her hair to lift it off the back of her neck and scoop it into a messy ponytail. Her skin was slick with sweat, and thirst pricked at her throat. Were it not for the other type of heat burning within her, and the other type of thirst driving her on, she would have suggested they get out of the car or at least roll a window down. Instead, she could bear the treacherous summer heat for a while yet. Because when she left the car, it would mean having to once again part from the girl laying beneath her. _

_     "Maybe we should have brought a water bottle," Gretchen suggested half-jokingly. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was fanned messily out beneath her across the backseat of the car. She snaked her hand along Claire's waist as she spoke, fingers meeting bare skin where Claire's tank top had ridden up to expose an inch of her midriff. Claire shuddered at the contact, in part because it thrilled her and in part because it always amazed her how cold her girlfriend's hands were even in the middle of summer. _

_     "Yeah, maybe," she agreed. Her cheeks were beginning to ache from grinning so hard. She was sure she would have looked like an idiot to anyone else right about then, but Gretchen's eyes shone with pure adoration. "I guess we'll just have to find another way to quench our thirst." _

_     Gretchen laughed, a little nervousness audible in her high pitch. Claire leaned back down toward her girlfriend, giving her a kiss which was eagerly reciprocated. _

_     Well, "girlfriend" might not have technically been the right term, but that was how Claire wished their relationship could be, and she got the impression Gretchen wanted the same. So even if their interactions were limited to making out in the backseat of Gretchen's car, maybe she could use the term "girlfriend" anyway. One day, maybe, hopefully, when Claire's current job was over and done with--because she had to assume they wouldn't keep her doing it forever--she could go back to having a normal life, and then they'd get to go on proper dates the way they couldn't afford to now. _

_     In the meantime… Claire moved her hands to let them rest atop Gretchen's, guiding their movement over her hips and lacing their fingers together. Gretchen let out a murmur of contentment as Claire pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, leaning into her touch. The warm buzzing feeling in Claire's core grew stronger as she felt her girlfriend's hands run gently over her, like the waters of a stream trickling over pebbles. _

__ You're too much (much too much),  _ the singer crooned, and Claire had to agree. _

_ * _

_     Snow floated downward from the sky in tiny frozen flakes that settled atop Gretchen's head, standing out against the brown of her hair. With a fond giggle that manifested in the air as a puff of white, Claire reached out to brush the snow away. Gretchen's cheeks, already rosy from walking out in the snow, grew a shade darker when Claire ran her fingers through her hair. _

_     Mr. O'Brien and Ms. Liu had sent her on a mission to take down a corrupt Canadian politician while they had stayed in the States to take care of said politician's connections and inside men. A few nights before leaving, she'd been able to borrow her boss's phone, send a text alerting Gretchen to this fact, and then delete the message on her end before said boss could see it. Now Claire and Gretchen were up north together, with Claire expected back before the new year but with just over a week to spend with her girlfriend until then. It was about as close to a perfect situation as they were going to get anytime soon. Claire didn't want to waste a single moment of it--but she didn't have to worry about that, because when she was with Gretchen, not one moment felt wasted. _

_     (The only thing that could have made it better was if she was able to see her family too, but she had decided long ago not to tell her parents about her resurrection, for their own safety. As for her brother, although they saw each other sometimes, he had chosen not to come along this time--which she was admittedly grateful for. As much as she missed her family, especially around the holidays, it was nice to have some privacy.) _

_     As they walked along the snowy sidewalk, the setting sun gleaming through the clouds above them, Claire found herself humming one of the songs Gretchen had introduced her to. "Is this the first time that you've ever seen aurora borealis crush mankind? The wind chimes chiming with the screams… pretty winter night, your hand in mine." The dark comedy of the lyrics may not have matched her current mood, but the romantic overtones certainly did. She reached out to take Gretchen's hand, and didn't have to worry for a moment that one of her bosses was going to find them. _

_     "You know, I had a feeling you'd like Lemon Demon when I introduced you to his music," Gretchen mused with a smile. "Something about it just makes me think of you." _

_     Claire raised an eyebrow. "You really think about me that much?" she asked; Gretchen nodded, a look of slight embarrassment passing over her face. "Aww, babe… if it were anybody else, I'd say it's probably not great to be so hung up on a college not-quite-girlfriend." _

_     "And since it's you and me?" _

_     "Well, it's still probably not great," she said with a shrug, admittedly only half joking. "But I like you a lot, so I'm glad you kept thinking about me. It means we get to be together now." _

_     With that she flashed Gretchen a grin, which Gretchen returned with a radiance that made Claire's heart glow, filling her with a warmth that counteracted even the stinging cold of Toronto in late December. _

_ * _

_     "You really shouldn't be here, you know," Claire whispered as she wrapped her hands around Gretchen's shoulders and pulled her in close. "My bosses have made it pretty clear that being caught with someone from my old life will result in… well, they haven't been super clear about what it'll result in, but it definitely won't be anything good." _

_     Gretchen simply smiled back at her, a certain coyness in her gaze as her hands slowly made their way further down Claire's back. Her face, painted with glittery green and purple makeup that complimented the faux-Victorian dress she wore, was illuminated in short bursts of brilliant colour that swung across the crowded dance floor in rapid succession, with interludes of darkness between the flashes of light. They were caught between a group of friends dancing in a circle and a pair of teenagers dancing a foot apart from each other, all of them working up a sweat from motion and proximity. Claire's heart thrummed in time to the music blasting from the speakers overhead:  _ You give me goosebumps, goosebumps… honey beware, you're in for a scare, oh no!

_     "I assume you requested this song?" she asked. "Either that or a certain singer/songwriter suddenly got a lot more mainstream while I wasn't looking." _

_     "Well, there are only so many 'spooky' songs out there," Gretchen pointed out. "And it seems like the crowd is enjoying it." _

_     She nodded to the group of dancers behind them, who were more or less jumping up and down in time to the beat, occasionally letting out an enthusiastic shout. _

_     "You make a fair point," Claire agreed. _

_     She let out a breathy laugh as Gretchen ducked down to plant a kiss to the side of her neck, the plastic vampire fangs she wore brushing against her skin. For a moment she allowed herself to be swept back into the dizziful bliss of the moment, letting her girlfriend lift her up off the ground and spin her around and give her a lengthy kiss as she set her back down. With each hormone-filled kiss or brush of a hand across her face, coupled with the sweat she could feel building on her forehead, she was sure that the zombie makeup she'd applied earlier was pretty thoroughly smeared, but at this point she hardly cared. It wasn't like she planned to enter any costume contests. It was enough to just be there with her girlfriend, even though she knew this interlude would be as fleeting as ever. _

_     Even as she raised herself onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to Gretchen's lips, her skin pricked with the awareness of her present situation, and the inherent danger of being observed. She wasn't even supposed to be there; neither of them were. It was by pure chance that some college kids were holding a Halloween party a few doors down from the house of Claire's assigned target, and a downright miracle that Gretchen had managed to track her down at the right address even after Claire's bosses had upped their efforts to throw people off their trail. To dissuade her bosses' suspicion, she'd have to be back by well before sunup--the earlier she left the party, the better, and she wouldn't put it past Mr. O'Brien to drop by the neighbourhood to check up on her. _

_     "You know," she mused aloud between kisses given and received in equal fervor, "Sometimes I wish I’d had a different ability. Like, right now, I really wish I could freeze time." _

_     Gretchen hesitated for a moment before replying. "I don't think that’d be a perfect solution," she said. "It would just be a bunch of stolen time in a frozen world. I'd rather live with you at a normal speed… if that makes any sense." _

_     "Yeah, sure, but…" Sighing, she closed her eyes and leaned the side of her head against Gretchen's chest, ear nestled against her breast. She could feel the beating of her heart, not quick and frantic like everyone else dancing around them, but calm and steady. Taking in a breath, Claire curled her fingers around the cheap dollar store fabric of her girlfriend's costume. "Are we ever gonna get to have a normal life like that? I've already been doing this for years." _

_     Gretchen didn't have an answer for that, but she pulled Claire in closer, planting a kiss to the top of her head and murmuring something soft and loving. Claire drew in a breath, trying to focus on the scent of her girlfriend's perfume, but even pressed right up against her it was still overpowered by the smells of sweat and alcohol from all around them. Still, she could feel Gretchen there with her, swaying gently in time to the music. And she really wished that still felt like enough. _

_ * _

_     A cool, gentle breeze ruffled Claire's hair, carrying with it the scents of spring. She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh of satisfaction, relaxing against the dew-speckled grass. It was damp against her back, and she wouldn't be surprised if she ended up catching a chill, but in the moment everything that filled her senses was divine. Above her, a sliver of brilliant blue sky snaked between the treetops, which were dotted with the pale green beginnings of new leaves. And next to her, of course, was the woman she loved. _

_     Gretchen's eyes were closed, eyelashes fluttering gently in the breeze. With her hands folded behind her head and one leg folded casually over the other, she was the very picture of relaxation; Claire wondered if she was asleep until she suddenly rolled onto her side, opening her eyes to smile at her. _

_     "This is wonderful," she said. "I bet you wish all your missions were like this." _

_     "Well, I'm only out here because apparently my target's been living out here, way off the grid," Claire reminded her. "So it wouldn't surprise me if they've got a bunch of weapons stashed away in their little cabin. Maybe they've got some booby traps set up, too." _

_     "How do you guys manage to track all these people down, anyway?" Gretchen asked. _

_     Claire winced at the question, already regretting having brought her occupation up. The more others knew about what she did, the higher the chance of her bosses finding out, and that could only spell danger. Still, her girlfriend had asked, and she'd feel bad if she didn't answer. _

_     "We've got somebody working for us who’s good at finding people," she told her, being sure to leave it at that so as not to risk compromising her coworker's identity. Molly was already a troubled girl; the last thing she needed was to be put at risk of being found out. _

_     Gretchen nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer. "Yeah, that makes sense." _

_     They lay in silence for a moment, listening to the wind in the trees and the chirping and chattering of wildlife. Claire's car--her bosses' car, really, but she was using it for this mission--was parked at the edge of the small clearing a few feet away. The song playing on the stereo through the aux cord drifted through the rolled-down window, quiet enough that it was barely audible. Claire was thinking of going to shut the music off, because she hadn't even intended to leave it playing in the first place and had simply forgotten to unplug the aux cord when getting out of the car, but that would mean getting up, and she didn't want to move an inch. Although the music was too quiet to make out the lyrics, she recognized the tune, and hummed along to one of the verses: "can't remember when I realized I was in love, la-la-love… can't remember who it was I was thinking of." _

_     "You're really beautiful, you know." _

_     Gretchen's soft voice caught her by surprise. Blinking, she turned her head to gaze at her girlfriend, who gazed back with a degree of adoration that made her heart flutter. _

_     "So are you," Claire replied. Then, after a brief pause: "I love you." _

_     She realized as she said it that she had never spoken those words aloud to Gretchen before, although it was far from her first time thinking them upon gazing into her girlfriend's glimmering eyes. She held her breath for a moment, waiting to see what reaction her words would get. But Gretchen simply smiled, reaching out to lay her hand atop Claire's. _

_     "I love you, too," she whispered. _

_     They lapsed back into silence after that. After all, nothing more needed saying. _

_ * _

_     There was a bright cheery atmosphere inside the diner that made it feel like nothing in the world could go wrong. With her coworkers several miles upstate running a mission without her, Claire had been awarded a bit of time to herself, and so naturally she was spending that time to go on one of maybe three or four, maximum, proper dates she had ever gone on with her girlfriend of several years. The air was filled with the chatter of customers, the occasional clink of glasses, and of course an array of savoury and salty aromas. Licking a few stray grains of salt from their shared order of french fries off her lips, Claire swung her legs back and forth slightly to the rhythm of the old doo-wop tune playing over the radio. Next to her, Gretchen swirled her spoon around inside her strawberry sundae, the metal utensil scraping quietly against the glass. _

_     "Say…" Gretchen spoke in a low voice, resting her head in her hand with her elbow propped up on the table. "I know this probably sounds pretty crazy, but what if we ran away together or something?" _

_     Claire blinked, startled by the suddenness with which her girlfriend raised the subject, but she couldn't pretend it was an idea she'd never considered before. If they could get away with it, in fact, there was nothing she'd like better--well, other than getting to see her family again, but that was a dream she'd more or less given up on at this point. It was just… _

_     "That could be dangerous, don't you think?" she replied. "I mean, I'd love to spend the rest of my life with you, Gretch… but if we get caught, the rest of our lives might be a lot shorter than I'd like." _

_     "Oh, yeah, of course we'd be taking a pretty big risk," Gretchen agreed. "But it's one I'm willing to take for you. I love you," she added, a twinge of desperation creeping into her voice. Claire realized with a pang of remorse just how much her girlfriend must have missed her whenever they were apart, in order for her to be earnestly suggesting trying to run away. _

_     "Well, what am I supposed to say to that?" Claire sighed. She picked up a french fry off their plate and worried it between her fingers without taking a bite. "I love you too, but my bosses wouldn't exactly be thrilled. And since my coworker--" (Once again, she made sure not to refer to Molly by name) "--has the power to locate people, they could find us wherever we go." _

_     Gretchen was silent for a long moment. With a frown etched across her face, she grabbed a fry off the plate and ate it slowly, without much enthusiasm. After swallowing it down, she folded her hands on the table in front of her and let out a heavy sigh. _

_     "You know what? You're right," she said. "No running away for us, at least not for the time being. But, Claire?" _

_     There was a hopeful uptick at the end of her voice; Claire met her gaze with raised eyebrows. _

_     "Yeah?" _

_     "Do you think this is the kind of establishment where people would mind seeing two women kiss?" Gretchen asked. "Because, man, I really want to kiss you right now." _

_     "I can't speak for anyone else here," Claire replied, a playful smile spreading across her face, "But if they'd have a problem with it, that's their loss." _

_     Grinning, Gretchen reached across the table to take Claire's hand; letting her eyelids flutter shut, Claire tilted her head to the side and leaned forward. Despite the old song still playing on the radio, another set of lyrics flashed through her head as she heard the door swing open and shut behind them. _

__ Right before the kiss I noticed something in the air, molecules existed when there should have been none there…

_     Before her lips met Gretchen's, Claire paused, feeling the hairs raise on the back of her neck. She turned to see the trio who'd just walked into the diner, and when she laid eyes on them, her blood ran cold. That wasn't--no, they weren't supposed to-- _

_     "Shit," Claire hissed under her breath, scrambling back into an unassuming position on the swiveling stool she was perched on. Shoulders tense, she hunched over her plate and reached for some fries, desperately hoping her coworkers hadn't seen her. _

_     No such luck. She flinched as Mr. O'Brien clamped his hand down on her shoulder; his faux-friendly chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. _

_     "Well, hi there," he said; even without turning around, she could picture the grin he flashed at her and Gretchen. "Were you ever going to introduce us to your little lady-friend here?" _

_     "Uh, hi?" Gretchen's brows crinkled together in confusion; leaning over to Claire, she whispered, "Are these the people you've been working for?" _

_     "Yup, that's them," Claire confirmed through gritted teeth. Swiveling her seat around to face her coworkers, she stared them down with as neutral an expression as she could manage. "Hey, guys. How'd the mission go?" _

_     Sneering, Ms. Liu stepped forward to lay a hand on Claire's arm. Claire jerked away from her touch, jumping off the stool and reaching out to grab Gretchen's hand. _

_     "Run!" she cried, as if the command needed to be given. _

_     She paid no attention to the rabble that broke out among the other customers as she and Gretchen bolted for the door, leaving their unfinished food behind them. She could hear her bosses shouting after them; grimacing, she picked up her pace. She threw the door open and the cool evening air hit her in a blast to the lungs as they burst out into the parking lot. Gretchen took the lead in a sprint toward her car, calling over her shoulder for Claire to follow her. _

_     "Shit, I guess we'll have to make a run for it after all, huh?" Claire called back, willing her short legs to carry her faster toward her girlfriend's car. _

_     "Yeah, I guess--" Gretchen broke off, freezing in place just a few feet away from her car. "Claire, behind you!" _

_     Before Claire could react, someone slammed into her from behind, forcing her to the ground. She let out a yelp of protest as her chin connected with the pavement, sending stars dancing across her vision for a moment. Calling out to her, Gretchen ran back towards her as Claire squirmed out from under her boss's grip. Judging by the amount of weight pushing down on her, it was Ms. Liu who had tackled her. That was a mistake, she thought--despite her musculature, the younger of her two bosses was lithe and much shorter than her burly male coworker--and sure enough, with a well-placed jab to the ribs, she was able to throw Ms. Liu off of her and scramble to her feet. However, by that point Mr. O'Brien had already reached Gretchen. Claire screamed in protest as her boss clamped his hand around her girlfriend's arm and-- _

_     And, muttering something she couldn't make out, very gently tapped his fingers against her forehead before promptly letting her go. _

_     Gretchen took a stumbling step backward, blinking rapidly, as Mr. O'Brien turned on his heel and walked back over to Ms. Liu as though nothing had happened. Oddly enough, neither of Claire's bosses tried to stop her as she ran up to her girlfriend, calling out to ask if she was okay. However, Gretchen didn't seem to hear her. Bringing her hand up to rub her head, she muttered something to herself and then walked the last few feet to her car. She climbed inside and slammed the door shut just before Claire could reach her. Brow furrowing, Claire ran up to her door and knocked on the window to get her attention, just as the vehicle rumbled to life. _

_     "Gretch, what are you doing?" she asked. "You're not going to drive off without me, are you? I thought we were going to--" _

_     She broke off with a yelp, jumping out of the way as Gretchen backed her car out of her parking space. Then, without a moment's pause that would allow Claire to climb in beside her, she took off onto the road, leaving Claire behind on the curb that framed the diner's parking lot. She didn't even glance out the window at Claire as she drove away. _

_     All Claire could do was stare as her girlfriend's vehicle disappeared into the distance, eventually vanishing from sight upon cresting a hill. She didn't try to run after her. Somehow, with a sinking feeling in her chest, she knew how ineffective that would be. Instead, she turned to face her bosses--Ms. Liu had her arms crossed and was smirking, while Mr. O'Brien had the same unassuming smile as always, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts--and asked a question she could already guess the answer to. _

_     "What the hell did you do to her?" _

*

    As the dreamlike haze of recovered memory faded back into reality, Claire's first thought was,  _ I have to tell Gretchen about this. _ How would she react to knowing that her mind had been tampered with in much the same way Claire's had been--her memory altered so she thought that, in her years spent pursuing Claire, she'd never once found her, when in reality they'd found each other over and over again? The fact that, in a period of time they had both forgotten, the two of them had cultivated a real relationship the likes of which Claire had been unwilling to commit to back in college… what did that say about them as people? And what did it mean for the future of their relationship?

    The second thought she had was,  _ Why is it so hot in here? _

    Groaning, Claire forced her eyelids open, even though they felt like they were made of lead. Her body felt kind of numb, and tiredness bogged down her mind and blurred her senses; she could only assume she was feeling the effects of some kind of knock-out drugs.  _ Oh yeah, that's right, _ she thought as a white ceiling came into view above her, and in the periphery of her vision, some kind of steadily beeping machinery.  _ I'm getting operated on, aren't I? _ But she didn't see any surgeons leaning down over her now. She could hear people from somewhere, but their voices were muffled and she couldn't process what they were saying--no, it sounded more like shouting. Mostly she just felt uncomfortably warm. And maybe it was her drug-addled mind playing tricks on her, but she could have sworn she heard a crackling noise that was growing progressively louder, not quite like static but more like…

    An orange light flickered in her peripheral vision. With a moan of effort, she raised her head to see a wall of fire stretching out in front of her, just beyond the edge of what she pieced together as being her hospital bed. Normally, such a sight would have made her heart leap into her throat, and she'd have been scrambling out of the bed and looking for the safest exit--not to mention checking to see if there was anyone else around who needed saving. But with heavy-duty painkillers still circulating through her system (she figured she wouldn't have woken up for some time yet were it not for the heat of the flames and the shouting from outside) all she could do was gaze blankly ahead as the fire spread, leaping higher and higher until the flames licked at the ceiling.

    An alarm started going off at that point, and it startled her back into something resembling lucidity for long enough to notice the figure standing at the end of her bed, in the centre of the fire. It looked humanoid, and it stood perfectly still despite being ablaze. Claire coughed, realizing with a twinge of slowly forming dread that the air was becoming thick with smoke. The figure at the end of her bed stepped forward then, walking with a crooked, shuffling gait; flames sprung up at its heels, bringing the proximity of the heat even closer to Claire. She winced as one of the newly formed flames shot out a burst of sparks that scattered across her bed; although her blankets didn't catch alight from the sparks, some of the flames on the floor were dancing dangerously close to her mattress. Looking down at herself, there was something off about the shape of her legs beneath the blankets, but she still felt too numb from the medication to put it together. The figure extended a flaming arm, which up close Claire could see was burnt and decayed beneath the flickering flames that enshrouded it, and placed a hand on the side of her face in a gesture that could have been mistaken for tender, if not for the intense prickle of heat that rose from her touch.

    A thought edged at the back of Claire's mind--that there was something vaguely familiar about all of this--but it slipped away before she could work out what it all meant. Then she fell back against the pillow, the flesh of her cheek seared and sizzling where the strange figure had touched it, and her consciousness began slipping away as well. She coughed again as her eyes fell shut. She barely understood what was going on, but with the last thought she was able to form and hold in her mind, she prayed that she would be able to survive it.

* * *

    "Let me through, damn it!" Noah snapped, pushing his way through the anxiously chattering crowd. "My daughter is in there!"

    "Hey!" a security guard exclaimed, grabbing him by the arm before he could make a break for the burning hospital building. "Nobody is allowed in there. It's dangerous."

    "Get the fuck off me," he snarled, trying and failing to jerk away from the security guard's grip. He briefly wondered if the guard was an evo with superstrength… or maybe he was just too old to put up a fight anymore. Nevertheless, he continued to struggle, writhing against the guard's sturdy grasp as they herded him away from the building. "I said let me through! You can't just leave her in there!"

    "All hospital staff are evacuating themselves and the patients as we speak," the guard informed him. A walkie-talkie at their belt crackled to life, and they raised it to their ear without loosening their grip on Noah. "What's going on? …Shit." Flipping the walkie-talkie on and clipping it back onto their belt, the guard raised their voice to address the crowd, within which Noah wasn't the only one fighting to get back towards the building. "Attention, everyone! A section of the south wing has collapsed. Please stay away from the building in case of further destruction."

    "Gramps!" Tommy's voice diverted Noah's attention from the burning building and the guard keeping him away from it. He turned to see the young man running toward him with his adoptive mother following close behind, her injured arm now bandaged up.

    The guard let go of him and moved on to shepherding a pair of younger women away from the line of police tape that was being hastily constructed around the building. With a reluctant glance over his shoulder, heart still tight with worry for his daughter, Noah moved through the crowd toward Tommy, meeting him in the middle. Tommy paused to catch his breath upon reaching Noah, giving Anne a chance to catch up with him. Once they'd all reconverged, he met Noah's gaze with wide, fear-stricken eyes.

    "Where's Malina? Did she get out okay?"

    Noah nodded, and Tommy's shoulders immediately slumped with relief. He had seen a doctor wheeling her out of the building on a stretcher, and he too had been relieved to look her over and ascertain that she was alright. Her surgery--removing the bullet, cleaning and dressing the wound--had already been complete when the fire started, by some miracle. She was still unconscious, but she was safe. He would have stayed by her side, making sure she  _ remained  _ safe, were it not for the fact that someone else just as dear to him--no, he couldn't kid himself; far  _ more  _ dear to him--was still inside that burning building.

    He relayed this information to Tommy through gritted teeth, intermittently glancing back toward the hospital as he did so. It had all happened so fast that, had he led a more ordinary life up until that point, he didn't think he would be able to believe it. Hell, even as it was he could barely wrap his mind around it. He had been idly flipping through a fishing magazine in the waiting room, while Tommy had sat next to him, swinging his legs back and forth slightly in a motion that provided a faint rhythmic scuff of his sneakers against the tiled floor. On the other side of Tommy, Anne had gingerly flexed her injured arm; the doctors had managed to disinfect and bandage her cut in a matter of minutes, and since it wasn't a deep gash, they didn't think she would need stitches. Noah, for one, was just relieved that Tommy had gotten out unscathed from the bizarre encounter with a supposed undead being he'd described while they were walking from the coffee shop back to the hospital. (He was still relieved about that, even now that his world had been plunged back into chaos and dread. According to Tommy's recount of the events, it had been a close call.) Then, from somewhere else in the building at first and then all around them, had come the blaring of a fire alarm accompanied by a crescendo of panicked screams. Noah had gotten to his feet, instantly alert, as a nurse had stepped out into the waiting room and addressed the people waiting there:

    "Attention, please! A fire has broken out in one of the operating rooms. Please stay calm and follow me in an orderly fashion!"

    Noah had barely been able to hear that last part, because of course people hadn't remained calm, and from that point on it had been pandemonium. A mad scramble for the nearest exit had begun, with countless people pushing and shoving and yelling, and he'd gotten separated from Tommy in the shuffle. Despite all the external stimuli making it hard to hear his own thoughts, his mind had raced with questions. But once outside, he'd been able to see how much of the building was already ablaze, and which section of the building it was, and then all his other questions had been wiped away at once, replaced by a single thought.  _ Where is Claire? _

    It seemed darkly fitting somehow that, just as one horrific event was being amended, another disaster struck. This time, at least, it wasn't his own fault, but that wouldn't make any fucking difference if Claire didn't make it out of that building alive, if his last interaction with his daughter was him shooting her. If he hadn't been such an idiot, she wouldn't have been in that hospital in the first place. Indirectly or not, it didn't make a difference--if she died now, it would be his fault. He would have killed her.

    Now, the anxious gaze of the young man before him brought a twisting sensation to Noah's gut; he didn't doubt that he looked equally as harrowed. Probably more so, all things considered. He swallowed hard and fought back the urge to break down right then and there.

    "Malina is over there," he told Tommy, nodding toward where several ambulances were parked on the side of the road across from the hospital parking lot. "The doctors are looking after her. You should go see her," he added, because it occurred to him then that Tommy hadn't gotten the chance to see his sister since his capture and brainwashing by those two deplorable people he'd described.

    Tommy followed his gaze to the row of ambulances, then gave a slow nod. He started moving in their direction, but then paused and glanced back at Noah.

    "You should come too," he said. "If she and I are twins, then she's your family too. You must be worried about her."

    Noah's throat tightened at that, and he bit back an angry retort. Of  _ course  _ he was worried about her. But he had seen her being wheeled out of the hospital, unconscious but in a stable condition, and the nurse had promised him that she was in no immediate danger. She would still need a few stitches later, they'd said, but luckily it had mostly been a surface wound to begin with. Malina's wellbeing, as much as he valued it, couldn't be his highest priority when her safety was assured and Claire's wasn't.

    "…Say, Gramps?" Tommy asked after Noah was silent for a moment. His voice was hesitant, but his brows were furrowed with intent. "When you were on the phone with me earlier--before we got interrupted--what were you saying about my mom being at the hospital too? You didn't mean my birth mother, did you?"

    "I--"

    Noah paused, momentarily unsure of what to tell him. After everything he was already going through, did he really need to learn of his mother's resurrection, especially now that she was in danger of dying all over again? Then again, he supposed that Tommy more or less already knew thanks to what he'd said over the phone ("before we got interrupted" was  _ one _ way of putting it) and he would almost certainly know if Noah covered it up with some improvised lie.

    "Yes," he said after a moment, clearing his throat. "I know it's hard to believe--I couldn't believe it myself, at first, and because of that I made the worst mistake of my life--but… your mother, Claire, is alive. I'm not sure how, or why… or for how long… but she's alive."

    Eyes widening, Tommy muttered something under his breath that Noah couldn't make out above the rabble of the crowd around them. He expected the young man to assail him with questions that Noah didn't have the answers to, and a few that he knew the answers to all too well, and he braced himself for it. Instead, Tommy turned on his heel and sprinted away in the direction of the row of ambulances he'd pointed out earlier. Before following after her son, Anne gave him a curious glance, but she turned her back to him quickly enough.

    For a moment, Noah debated whether to follow them and check on Malina or to resume his futile attempts at getting past the guards and into the burning building (it would have been a waste of time even if he could get in there, the rational side of him knew, because what did he think he'd do once he was in there? March through the flames and smoke into the operating room and pull his daughter out the way she'd pulled a man out of a wrecked train car so many years ago? His body wasn't built for that, especially not now that he was getting older.) Before he could make up his mind, though, his phone rang. Curious as to who could have been calling him, but guessing it was either Sandra or Angela, he picked the phone out of his back pocket and checked the caller ID, which identified the call as coming from Tommy's phone. Brows knitting together, he raised the phone to his ear and answered it.

    "Hello?"

    "Noah Bennet?" The voice that answered was soft and raspy, and pitched high with what sounded like pain, with an accent that had faded somewhat over the years but was still instantly recognizable. "I-is Tommy there?"

    "He's… er, he's in the area," Noah replied. Then, letting his bewilderment creep into his voice: "Since when are you alive, Nakamura? I thought you fell in battle to protect Tommy."

   "Ah, I'm just full of surprises," Hiro said with a sort of grim mirth to his tone that Noah wasn't used to hearing from him. After a brief pause, during which Noah could hear him draw in a pained-sounding breath and let it out with a quiet groan, he continued. "You say Tommy is with you? Is he safe?"

    "As safe as anyone here is at the moment," Noah muttered. Then, realizing that answer would only make the time-traveler more concerned: "Yes, he's safe, and so is Anne. We're at the Los Angeles general hospital… outside of it, rather. It's on fire."

    "Oh…"

    Hiro was silent for a moment. The slow sound of his breathing crackled over the phone, bringing a twist to Noah's gut with how pained it sounded. Was he injured? It wasn't that Noah himself had a terrible amount of investment in Hiro's wellbeing, but at the same time, he couldn't let Tommy lose his adoptive father all over again. He was about to speak up and ask where Hiro was and if he needed help when Hiro broke the silence for him.

    "Don't tell Tommy that I called you," he said in a decisive tone. "If I survive, then I will come see him. Otherwise… it would be best for him not to know."

    "What the hell are you saying, Nakamura?" Noah asked sharply. "You think we're just going to let you die? Where are you, anyway--what happened?"

    However, before he'd finished asking those questions, the call had already ended with a muffled click. Sighing, Noah cast one final glance at the burning hospital building, praying that if his daughter was still in there she would get out safely. Then he turned toward where the line of ambulances were parked across the street and started in that direction at a brisk pace, scanning the gathered crowd for his grandson.

* * *

    The cottage, constructed by hand (well, moreso by telekinesis than by hand, but still) to perfectly accommodate two men and a cat, was feeling a little cramped with three visitors clustered around the kitchen table. To be fair, it was three visitors more than they'd ever expected to have. Sylar sat at one end of the table in a rocking chair he had moved over from the living room, with a purring Rolex curled up in his lap. Next to him, Peter stood facing their guests, leaning forward with his hands against the surface of the table as he addressed them.

    "We were all lucky to escape with our lives," he was saying. "And for some of us," he added with a meaningful glance at Tracy, "It was the second time in under a week that a hospital we were at was attacked by a strange and powerful opponent. I don't know if those events are connected, but I bet the media will have something to say about it."

    "Yeah, I'll say," Tracy agreed from where she stood at the other end of the table, leaning casually against the kitchen counter and inspecting her nails. "Something about evo terrorism, no doubt."

    Next to her, Micah leaned over to whisper something to the young woman sitting on his other side. Peter hadn't quite caught her name yet, and he wasn't sure exactly what her deal was, but she certainly seemed trustworthy. According to Tracy, she had saved Micah's life after one of the attacking zombies had fatally wounded him. Maybe she had healing powers, then? If that was the case, it was an interesting choice for her to carry around a sword--the blade in question was currently laid out on the table next to her, in its sheath. Although Peter was curious about the young woman, whatever abilities she may have possessed, and the blade she wielded, he decided now wasn't the time to ask about things like that. She'd tell him herself, if she cared to.

    "While we were fighting the zombies in the parking lot, Sylar here managed to figure out how they tick," Peter went on, nodding toward his boyfriend. "Do you want to explain what you figured out?"

    At the prompt, Sylar cleared his throat and straightened up in his seat, bringing his hands away from the cat on his lap and folding them on the table in front of them. He gave their guests a slightly crooked replica of a polite smile; it looked almost like he was trying to creep them out, which Peter frowned at, but there was no time to dwell on his boyfriend's method of messing around with people.

    "I was concerned at first because it looked like the zombies had regenerative capabilities," he began, the unsettling smile he'd put on quickly dropping away as he became more serious. "But after I cut one of the zombies' hands off, they didn’t grow back. Upon closer inspection, the rest of the wounds we dealt to them during our battle weren't healing either, and once we put them out of their misery, they stayed dead. So, I think it's safe to say that the zombies  _ don't  _ have healing powers in the traditional sense. Rather, they were becoming progressively… less undead, shall we say." He shifted slightly in his seat, drawing his tongue around his lips thoughtfully. "It probably has to do with whatever raised them from the dead in the first place. And whatever  _ that  _ may be, I really couldn't tell you."

    "Thank you for sharing," Peter said, clapping his boyfriend on the shoulder. Sylar gave a curt nod and then turned his attention back to Rolex, who had now rolled over onto her back and was stretching her paws out with a yawn. Turning back to their visitors, Peter asked, "Does anyone else have any information about the zombies?"

    Micah and his companion exchanged a glance; she shrugged and shook her head. From her position a couple feet to the side, where she was now running her fingertips along their polished wooden countertop as though to inspect its grain, Tracy glanced up at them and, when Peter gave her an encouraging nod, stepped forward to speak.

    "I'm not sure if this counts as information, but for the record, I was able to freeze one of the two zombies that attacked myself and Micah without issue--the one that threw him across the room when we were trying to escape. The other zombie, though… it was totally unaffected, and then it walked through the wall like it was nothing." Micah flinched at that, but if Tracy registered her nephew's reaction, she didn't acknowledge it. "I never was able to get rid of that damn thing. So it's probably still out there."

    Peter's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to demand why she hadn't said so sooner--if she knew for a fact one of those things was still out there, that meant countless innocent people were in danger--but before he could get a word out, Micah spoke up from his position at the other end of the table.

    "Um, I don't think the zombies are much of a threat to most people," he said. "When those two came into the hospital room me and Tracy were in, they… they only really went after me. The zombie who could phase through things--" There was a certain strained quality in the way he said that descriptor, and Peter got the feeling there was a story there; although he didn't want to pry, he also got the feeling that the story would provide them with some useful information. "--It could have stayed in the room and tried to hurt Tracy, but instead it followed me out into the hallway, even though she was the one who'd just attacked it. And then, uh…" He turned to give his aunt a questioning glance. "Sorry, what did you say happened after that, again?"

    "After we were separated, the zombie turned around and walked right back into the room," she supplied. Her brows were pinched together as she spoke--clearly she was bewildered by the events that had unfolded earlier that day (well,  _ earlier  _ was a relative term, since it had been before sunrise in Tokyo and here it was late afternoon). "I was expecting a battle, but instead it just sat down on the floor next to where I'd frozen its companion. I tried blasting it with another ice attack, but it phased through that too, and at that point I was pretty worried about Micah so I left the room and went to look for him."

    Despite the circumstances, Micah smiled slightly at his aunt's admission that she'd been worried about him. However, it was only the briefest flash across his face, before and after which his eyes were dark with an amalgamation of emotions that Peter felt were too private to try guessing at. The young woman sitting next to him laid her hand atop his and gave it an assuring squeeze, leaning over to murmur something in his ear. Sylar exaggeratedly arched an eyebrow at that, glancing up at Peter as though to say,  _ What do you think of all that? _ Peter responded with a slight frown and a shake of his head-- _ Not now, dear. _ They had more important things to discuss than gossiping about Micah and his new friend.

    "So, what does that mean?" he inquired, diverting his attention back to Tracy and Micah. "Do you think the zombies were just targeting you?"

    "Those two were, yeah," he said. "Probably not the ones you guys were fighting out in the parking lot, though. Those ones were attacking you directly, right?"

    Peter nodded. "Well, they were attacking Sylar more than me, actually," he amended. "The explosive one in particular barely seemed to care about me. It was like they were only fighting me because I was fighting them--like I was in the way."

    He hadn't noticed it himself while he was fighting the zombies, being too caught up in the heat of battle, but Sylar had pointed it out to him afterwards--another impressive feat of his boyfriend's observational skills. Sure enough, now that he thought about it, the only time one of the zombies had directly attacked him  _ not  _ in retaliation was the initial explosive blast that had sent him tumbling to the ground and momentarily knocked him out. And that was when he'd fallen just out of step with Sylar, walking a couple paces behind him. So, maybe that attack hadn't even been meant for him in the first place. In any case, Sylar certainly had been the centre of the zombies' attention.

    (It was funny, too, because when the zombies had first appeared it looked like the tops of their heads had been sawed off, almost like what Sylar used to do to his victims… but Peter tried not to think too much about that. Even if the zombies really had been old victims of his boyfriend, so what? They both knew Sylar was a changed man now--he wasn't like that anymore. Sure, being reminded of it brought an unpleasant squeezing sensation to his gut, but it didn't matter. It was in the past.)

    "So, what does that mean?" For the first time since sitting down around the table, Micah's companion spoke up, her eyes narrowed and her voice sharp. "Are the zombies only going after specific people? In that case, if the phasing zombie escaped, will it follow Micah here?"

    "If that's its target, I suppose it will," Sylar replied. "But without flight or teleportation, I don't anticipate it being able to catch him anytime soon. We  _ are  _ on the other side of the world now, after all."

    "Yes, but we can't stay here forever," she retorted. "Micah and I--well,  _ I've _ got a business to run back home," she hastily corrected herself, a faint blush spreading into her cheeks as she squared her shoulders. "I don't know what he will want to do once this is over--go back to his own home, I suppose. In any case, if there are other zombies out there, we'll need to take care of those as well or else many people could suffer."

    "That's a good point," Peter agreed. With a regretful sigh, he added: "I just wish there was a way to find out if and where there are other zombies… it's not like we have any access to the internet out here."

    The young woman's eyebrows shot up at that, and she turned to Micah to excitedly whisper something. His eyes lit up and he nodded; she handed him something under the table, and a few seconds later, he held up a cellphone with a bedazzled magenta case. The screen was lit up, displaying a news article with a video at the top of the screen.

    "Ah, thank you, Micah," Peter said with a dip of his head; he felt kind of silly for forgetting about the young man's ability, but he couldn't have known for sure that anyone among them had an electronic device like that on them, anyway.

    "It's no problem," he said with a shrug, although he looked pleased with himself for being able to help. He lowered the phone and fiddled with it for a moment, then raised it up so that everyone could see the footage being displayed, with the volume turned up. They all leaned forward to observe, with Tracy stepping away from the countertop and properly joining the rest of the group around the table.

    The video showed aerial footage of a large burning building, with pillars of smoke billowing up into the darkening evening sky amidst roaring orange flames. There was a fire truck parked outside, with the firefighters doing their best to douse the flames, but it looked like the fire was spreading too quickly--particularly in one wing that appeared to have partially collapsed, where the flames climbed the highest by far, new ones springing up as soon as the firefighters managed to reduce them. The camera zoomed further out to show the parking lot and the adjacent street, where a large cluster of people swarmed around; a line of ambulances were parked on the other side of the road, safely away from the flames. True to Tracy's prediction, the news reporter was narrating over the footage: "This is the third mysterious attack against a hospital within the span of just a few short days. Could it be an act of evo-led terrorism?"

    Then the camera cut to a close-up of the crowd gathered in the parking lot, being herded forcefully away from the flames by armed guards while a couple of officers set up a line of police tape blocking off the hospital building. Several of the people were shouting in fear and panic--the sight of it made Peter's heart clench in agony, his empathetic tendencies as acute as ever. It looked like a few of them were trying to get past the guards and towards the building. Amidst the sea of raised voices, muffled and tinny through the cellphone speaker, a familiar-sounding voice caught Peter's ear, and he did a double take, leaning closer towards the phone screen to try to make out individual faces amongst the crowd. Sure enough, the camera zoomed in on one middle-aged man in a suit and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, struggling against the grip of a guard as they pulled him away from the blocked-off building.

    "I said let me through!" Noah was yelling as he thrashed uselessly in the guard's grip. "You can't just leave her in there!"

    Just as quickly as the image of the former Company man filled the screen, it cut to another civilian--this time an elderly person weeping while clutching their grandchild--but by that point, Peter's mind was already racing at a mile a minute. How had Noah gotten himself wrapped up in this? Was he being targeted by the zombies as well? And--perhaps the question that pounded with the most ferocity in his head--who was he shouting about? " _ You can't just leave her in there" _ … someone was still in that burning hospital building. Someone important to Noah. And although it couldn't possibly be the person who first flashed through Peter's mind (couldn't be her, he reminded himself with a pang of sorrow that struck deep at his heart, because she was long gone) it was still a person in danger. A person he needed to help. What's more, if there was one person left behind in that building, there would probably be others as well.

    "I'm going," he announced without thinking, stepping back from his place around the table. "I've got to save them."

    The legs of the rocking chair scraped against the floor as Sylar pushed away from the table and got to his feet. Disrupted, Rolex tumbled to the floor and shook out her fur with an indignant meow. Before Peter could take more than two steps forward, his boyfriend's hand clamped down on his shoulder; clenching his jaw, he turned to look over his shoulder, expecting to be met with a disapproving glare. Instead, although Sylar's gaze was intense and his mouth set in a firm line, his expression bore no hint of anger. More than anything, he just looked worried.

    "Peter…" he began, lifting his hand off his shoulder and bringing it up to briefly brush against his cheek. He hesitated for a moment, a slight shifting motion in his jaw suggesting that he was biting his tongue. "…Be careful this time, will you?"

    "You think I haven't been careful before?" Peter asked--but, admittedly, it was more of a rhetorical question than genuinely taking offense. Reaching up to grasp his boyfriend's hand in his own, he met his gaze and flashed him an assuring smile. "Of course I'll be careful, babe. And, you know, you're welcome to come with me if you want," he added.

    Sylar shook his head. "If Mr. Bennet is there, I don't think he'll be too happy to see me," he pointed out. "Best you go alone this time."

    Peter nodded, understanding his line of reasoning. He tossed a quick wave over his shoulder to their visitors before turning to walk out of the kitchen and toward the living room, where the front door beckoned him.

* * *

    A mellow country-rock tune was playing on Matt's portable stereo, and Mohinder found himself humming along to it as he chopped vegetables and deposited them into the cooking pot. The minifridge in Matt's tent trailer had wound up being much better stocked than he had feared, although the cupboard above the single-element stove he was cooking on was painfully devoid of herbs and spices. The former detective himself sat cross-legged on the bed at the front end of the trailer, across from Molly. They were playing a card game, and although Mohinder was primarily paying attention to the vegetables he was chopping and how those already boiling in the pot were faring (the stove's controls were rather finicky, and he worried he was cooking them on too high a heat) he could garner from the snippets of their conversation that caught his ear that Molly was currently winning. Whether Matt was letting her win or she was genuinely better at the game than him, he couldn't say; either way, it brought a smile to his face to hear Molly giggle gleefully that she was still in the lead.

    Once all the vegetables were chopped up and in the pot, Mohinder put the lid on the pot and turned the element down to a lower heat to let it simmer. Then he washed his hands and, being forced to rub his hands dry on his pants for absence of a dish towel, turned toward Matt and Molly with a smile.

    "Dinner should be ready in a few minutes," he announced. "I'm afraid it will be rather unseasoned, since somebody didn't have the right spices on hand… but hopefully you'll enjoy it."

    "Oh, I'm sure we will," Matt said; Molly nodded in agreement, her eyes shining. "Probably better than anything I managed to cook up these past few years, anyway."

    Mohinder hummed noncommittally at that. He'd had Matt's cooking a few times when they'd been living together, and it had been perfectly serviceable, although admittedly nothing to write home about. That had been so many years ago, though, that his abilities may well have improved in the meantime; having been apart from him for so long, he didn't feel qualified to comment on his skills or lack thereof.

    "Well, in the future, perhaps you can stock your cupboards a bit better," he suggested instead. "Only if you can afford to, of course." Something occurred to him then, and he added: "How have you been earning money all this time, anyway? If you're trying to live under the radar, I can't imagine you've been holding down a steady job."

    "Oh, uh, I've been doing this and that," Matt replied with a shrug. "It's not like I was completely off the grid. I'd go someplace I'd never been before and do a few odd jobs."

    He shuffled over to the side as he spoke, patting the blankets next to him in an invitation for Mohinder to sit down with him. Mohinder obliged, lifting himself up and settling down on the foam mattress. The single-size bed groaned slightly under his weight, though, and he quickly hopped back down with a shake of his head.

    "I don't believe it's built to support the weight of three people," he supplied.

    "Oh, yeah, I guess not." Matt sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "Then could we maybe step outside for a moment? There's some stuff we should probably talk about."

    "Certainly," Mohinder agreed. "Molly, would you mind watching the stove for a while? If the contents of the pot start to boil, turn off the heat. And don't touch the pot with your bare hands."

    "I already knew that," she said with a vaguely disgruntled wrinkle of her nose, and he was struck again by the fact that she really wasn't a child anymore. "But, yeah, I'll watch it for you."

    She gathered up the cards she and Matt had been playing with, tying them up with a rubber band, as Matt stood up and followed Mohinder out of the tent trailer. Outside, the sun was going down, casting the sky in an array of soft oranges and pinks with the occasional darker streak of red. The air was cool, with a breeze that ruffled Mohinder's hair and brought a chill to his exposed forearms (he had put on a faded t-shirt because the air inside the trailer bordered on stifling and he'd been getting overheated earlier). Apparently noticing his faint shiver, Matt shrugged off his zip-up hoodie.

    "Here," he said as he laid the hoodie over Mohinder's shoulders. Mohinder's cheeks heated up at the gesture, and he briefly considered telling him it wasn't necessary… but who was he to refuse a gesture of kindness? He blinked gratefully at Matt as he zipped the hoodie up.

    They walked in silence for a while across the snow-dusted stretch of earth that Matt's trailer was parked on, past the campfire and his car. (Mohinder realized, and suddenly felt very foolish upon realizing, that his own car was still sitting out on the side of the highway where he'd left it after being injured; they'd have to circle back and retrieve it at some point.)

    "How come you were cooking, anyway?" Matt asked after a few minutes of walking along. "Your arm's still healing; you shouldn't be using it too much."

    "Don't worry, Matthew, I wasn't overexerting myself," Mohinder replied. Honestly, at this point, Matt's concern for him was becoming less flattering and more exhausting. Didn't he think he could fend for himself? "Besides, I wanted to let you and Molly spend some time together. You always were her favourite."

    "I guess," Matt said with a shrug.

    He came to a stop then, tucking his hands in the pockets of his faded bluejeans and tipping his head back to look up at the sky. Mohinder slowed to a stop along with him, following his gaze up at the gradually darkening sky. The reddish hue was spreading farther now; looking out at the city in the distance, he thought for a moment that he could see a pillar of smoke curling up from somewhere. When Matt spoke up again, his voice was thick with weariness.

    "God, I fucked up."

    There was no need for him to elaborate; Mohinder knew at once what he meant. Retracting his gaze from the red-tinted sunset and lowering his head, he reluctantly nodded. There was no sense in denying it.

    "Yes, you did  _ fuck up _ ," he agreed; he tried to put a note of bemusement in his voice as he echoed Matt's turn of phrase, but it came out sounding closer to bitterness. "You made a lot of bad decisions, and you harmed a lot of people. If I hadn't known you before all of that happened, I'm not sure I could find it in my heart to forgive you."

    "And do you forgive me?" Matt asked, tilting his head to look at Mohinder without fully meeting his gaze. "I mean, I know most of us have screwed each other over at some point or another--me, you, Peter, Noah, not to mention Sylar… but it's different with the two of us, isn't it? I mean, we're way more than acquaintances who sometimes help each other save the world."

    "You're very right about that," he said, flashing Matt a wry smile that he couldn't force to stay on his face for too long. He folded his hands behind his back, his own clothing not having pockets to hide them in. "I've heard it said that any 'good cops' will eventually have to choose between being good and being a cop. And being an LAPD detective had been your aspiration for a long time before I even met you. Of course you would choose your occupation over your morals, in the end."

    He kept his tone gentle as he spoke, trying not to betray the complicated swirl of emotions that took hold of his heart whenever he looked at Matt. Mohinder had made a fair share of his own bad decisions--namely deciding to inject himself with an untested formula to give himself powers--so he probably wasn't in any position to judge in the first place. Still, when he closed his eyes, he could still picture a harsh, dangerous glare directed his way from the man he loved. And that scared him nearly as much as the admission that he loved him in the first place, loved him still despite everything, and wished so desperately that things could return to how they'd been before, when they were two recently-made friends sharing a small apartment and doing their best to co-parent a little girl who depended on them.

    "I wish it were as easy as forgiving you or not," he went on, letting a twinge of sadness creep into his voice as the feeling overtook him. "Our pasts don't allow for anything quite so black-and-white, I'm afraid."

    "Yeah, that's what I figured," Matt sighed. Finally, he lowered his eyes from the sky and turned them fully onto Mohinder, returning his somber gaze. "So, where the hell do we go from here? You kinda danced around the question earlier, no offense. And I'd like to know if we're gonna stay together, and for how long, and all that."

    Mohinder hesitated, worrying his teeth against the inside of his bottom lip. He had avoided properly answering the question within a long-term context mainly because he didn't know _._ Oh, some small part of him deep down knew exactly what _he_ wanted, but he didn't know if that was what Matt wanted, or what Molly wanted either for that matter. She was a grown woman now, albeit a young one with a lot of issues to work through, and she would need to make her own life decisions.

    "I think," he said slowly, fighting against the urge to avert his gaze from Matt's intense, searching eyes, "I want us to stay together for as long as you feel would be suitable. Whether that's in your tent trailer, in an apartment, or anywhere else… I'd like to stay with you."

    Matt's eyes widened, a blush spreading into his cheeks, and he opened his mouth to say something. Before he could speak, though, his jaw snapped shut and his eyes narrowed.

    "What the hell is that?"

    He stepped around Mohinder, peering at something in the distance. Mohinder turned to see what he was looking at, but he only caught a glimpse of a vibrant multicoloured blur streaking toward them before Matt was thrown backwards with a shout. With his enhanced agility, Mohinder swerved to avoid having Matt crash into him, instead catching him in his arms and setting him swiftly back on his feet. Matt, evidently out of breath, panted out a "thanks" as he dusted off the front of his shirt.

    "What on earth…?" Mohinder muttered, narrowing his eyes as he turned to see where the blur had settled.

    Standing a few feet away from them with a ghastly grin plastered across their face was a person who definitely hadn't been there a moment ago. Or maybe  _ person  _ was the wrong word. Their skin was pale and sunken, like the flesh of a corpse, and in a few spots it peeled away to reveal bits of rotted gray flesh. Its clothes--a red tank top and white shorts--were faded and tattered, and its short platinum-blond hair hung wispy and wiry around its face. There was no trace of emotion in its eyes, which were fixed on Matt. Shuddering, Mohinder took a step backward, tightening his grip protectively around Matt's shoulders.

    "Uh, Mohinder?" Matt's voice held an underlying pitch of fear that matched the dread building within Mohinder at the sight of the strange figure. "I think we'd better get out of here."

    Mohinder nodded, throat dry, but his gaze was fixed on the strange figure and it was like he was rooted to the spot. It was like seeing a horrific accident on the news--or, heaven forbid, in person--and being captivated by it. The longer he stared at it, the harder his heart pounded in his chest and into his throat, but he couldn't bring himself to look or move away from it.

    At least, not until it lunged for them again.

    Its movements were lightning-fast, but Mohinder anticipated the attack just in time to tackle Matt and himself out of the way. Something brushed across his back as he pushed his companion to the ground; upon landing atop Matt with a grunt, he felt the chilly evening air bite into the skin of his back as harshly as if there were no clothes covering it. He twisted around to look over his shoulder, and saw that that really was the case. Both his own shirt and the hoodie Matt had lent him now bore large, ragged holes along the back that looked like they could have been made by some sort of blade--although their apparent attacker didn't appear to have any weapons on them. He was relieved to note that the damage was to the clothing alone; Matt was clearly fine too, although he took a moment to catch his breath again before sitting up.

    Shaken out of his horrified enthrallment by a new rush of adrenaline and the cold wind piercing his exposed back, Mohinder grabbed Matt's arm and pulled him to his feet. "Let's run," he muttered, before breaking into a sprint toward the tent trailer.

    He kept his hand firmly locked around Matt's wrist to pull him along, assuming the former detective couldn't run as quickly, but Matt came close to matching his pace. Their feet pounded slightly out of sync with each other against the hard-packed earth, sending bits of snow flying up behind their heels. Mohinder almost stumbled over a thick clump of dry grass, but he quickly righted himself and carried on without any issue. Although he didn't dare to look over his shoulder, he could only assume that their attacker had made no move to come after them yet, because with how fast that thing moved it would take it only a second to--

    His train of thought was abruptly derailed when the colours of their attacker's garb streaked by in his peripheral vision. Matt screamed, and the weight of his hand in Mohinder's was torn away. Heart spiking, Mohinder turned to see his companion pinned face-first to the ground, writhing beneath their attacker's grip. The strange, pale-skinned figure drew its hand back, lining it up with the bottom of Matt's shoulder blade. There was a whirring sound, like the blades of a fan, and the stranger's grayish, bony hand seemed to blur. Mohinder didn't understand what was happening, but his heart twisted with panic at the sight of the seemingly vibrating hand lowering toward his companion's back. Crying out Matt's name, he dove toward their frightening attacker with the intention of pulling it off of his companion.

    Slamming into the figure was like striking a large mass of damp paper. It rolled away easily, mottled flesh offering little resistance. Pinning it to the ground, Mohinder drew his fist back and punched it in the face. The crack of bones rang out at the contact, and its head lolled to the side with its jaw splintered, but the rest of its body didn't tense even slightly, and it didn't even flinch. Clearly whatever this thing was, it wasn't human. And he was willing to guess it couldn't feel pain.

    Keeping a hand pressed firmly down on their attacker's shoulder, Mohinder looked over his shoulder at Matt. He was lying facedown in the snow, and he didn't appear to be moving, but from the angle Mohinder was looking at it was hard to see if he'd suffered any physical damage.

    "Matthew?" he called, voice sharpening with concern. "Matt! Are you alright?"

    Matt responded with a pained groan. He lifted his head, and his eyes widened when he looked at Mohinder.

    "Look out!"

    His companion's warning came just in time to alert Mohinder to the vibrating hand aimed at his chest. He intercepted the attack, grabbing it by the wrist just as its fingertips brushed against his skin. Scowling, he stood up to get his vital organs out of the thing's reach, pressing his foot against its stomach to keep it pinned down.

    "Thanks for the heads up," he said as he turned back to Matt with a grateful smile. The expression vanished from his face along with the breath from his lungs when he laid eyes on his companion.

    Matt was still lying down, his face contorted with pain, and now a dark shade of red was slowly seeping into the snow around him. Now that he was standing, Mohinder could see that there was a ragged hole in the back of Matt's shirt, just like the one torn through his own clothes--cold was still seeping into him through the torn jacket. However, in Matt's case, his clothes weren't the only thing torn open. A jagged slash ran across his back, as though someone had taken a serrated blade to his side and carved into him. The cut started just below his right shoulder blade, and although it was hard to say for certain, it looked like it ran straight through him.

    Mohinder froze, blood running cold, at the sight of Matt's gruesome injury. He could still feel their attacker squirming beneath his foot, not letting up even when he ground his heel against its midsection. His heart screamed for him to rush to Matt's side, but he didn't dare turn his back on the thing that had attacked him. That would be making the same mistake twice. That meant there was only one option: finish the thing off before it could do any more damage.

    "I'm sorry," Mohinder muttered to the sunken-skinned figure beneath him. Even if it gave no sign of sentience, it  _ appeared  _ undeniably humanoid; he wouldn't have wanted to destroy it if he had other options available to him.

    Bending down, he clamped one hand down on the thing's shoulders and the other atop its head. With a firm turn of his hand, he twisted its neck to the side until he heard a decisive snap. The figure dropped limply to the ground when he released it.

    With the threat dealt with, Mohinder wasted no time in going to Matt's side. He lifted him onto his lap, a knot of dead forming in his gut as he traced his fingertips along Matt's wound. Just as he thought, it cut all the way through him. Judging by the location, no vital organs should have been damaged, but the amount of blood already staining the snow around them was enough to make him shudder. Matt would need to be looked after, and fast--perhaps faster than it would take him to drive back into the city.

    "Hang in there, Matthew," he whispered, throat dry and swollen with distress. "Please."

    Wrapping his arms securely around his injured companion, he lifted him up into what some might call a bridal carry and set off back toward his trailer at an urgent pace.

* * *

    It was hard to describe how Tommy felt, looking down at the girl on the stretcher. He recognized her, beyond a shadow of a doubt; looking at her face, eyes closed but her eyelids occasionally twitching, his heart swelled with nostalgia and a great sense of familial love. If he concentrated he could remember meeting her before, working together with her, and then a series of more casual interactions--although that part seemed to elude his memory a little more so than the first part. Under better circumstances, it would have been a relief that his mind was repairing itself at a quicker rate now. But concern for his sister overshadowed any other emotions. The doctors had said she should be alright, but as long as she remained unconscious, he found it hard to fully believe.

    Then, gradually, she began to stir. When she tilted her head to the side, shoulders hunching slightly and face cinching with discomfort, Tommy's heart sped up. He held his breath as she let out a faint murmur, and he didn't let it out until several seconds later, when another turn of her head was accompanied by her eyes fluttering open for just a moment. As though by instinct, he reached out and grabbed her hand from where it was folded atop her chest. Her fingers curled as he wrapped his hand around hers, signaling that she registered his touch. A sigh escaped her lips, and they curved into the shape of a smile before settling back into the neutral expression of slumber.

    "You're still not quite ready to wake up yet, are you?" he murmured, rubbing his thumb against the back of his sister's hand. "That's okay. With all the crazy stuff that's going on, I'd rather not be awake right now either."

    The doctors promised that they'd been able to get her out quickly enough that she hadn't inhaled much smoke, if any. Even so, he paid studious attention to the rise and fall of her chest. Was it deep and even enough? With her hands positioned across it, it was hard to say for certain, but it looked like she was breathing okay. He could hear it, when he leaned in close enough, and it sounded normal. That much was a relief. If she really was only remaining unconscious because of the drugs she'd been given, then she would be fine in the long run. He only wished he could get himself to stop worrying.

    Anne stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders and occasionally saying something reassuring. He nodded along to whatever she said, but to be honest, he barely even processed his mom's words. He was just too distracted by everything that was going on, from his sister to the fire to the strange and frightening encounter that had driven him and Anne from their house.

    What did divert his attention, though, was the sound of Noah urgently calling his name. Tommy looked over his shoulder to see his granddad walking quickly toward him, cellphone in hand.

    "What is it?" he asked as Noah sidled up next to him.

    "I just got a phone call," Noah said. "How is she?" he added with a nod to Malina.

    "Apparently she's going to be okay, but I guess the drugs they gave her during surgery haven't worn off yet," he muttered. "She's still asleep."

    "I see," he said with a sigh. Something like remorse crossed his face as his gaze lingered on Malina for a moment. Then, turning his attention back to Tommy, he asked: "Where did you leave your phone when you and Anne had to leave the house?"

    "Huh? Uh, I dropped it on the living room floor," he said. (He suppressed a wince at the memory of the noise the phone had made upon falling to the ground. Hopefully it wasn't broken, because he had no idea if it was insured.) "Why do you ask?"

    "I just got a call from you and Anne's phone number," Noah told him, holding the phone up so he could see. Sure enough, the display screen on the phone app indicated a recently ended call from a contact listed as "Clarke residence". "I think you had better go back to your house."

    "What? Why?" he asked incredulously. "There's a zombie! Do you want me to get killed or something?"

    "Of course I don't!" Noah said sharply. He paused, sighing, and took his glasses off for a moment so he could massage his temples. "Look, I've still got my gun in the glove compartment of my car. If the zombie is still there, I can take care of it for you."

    That did sound like a slightly more credible prospect, but Tommy wasn't convinced. He glanced back at Malina, still laying unconscious on the stretcher with no sign of change in either direction. A ball of indignance settled in his throat at the thought of being asked to leave her side at a time like this; at his sides, his hands involuntarily bunched into fists. And hadn't Noah just said that his biological mother--Claire--was alive and in that burning building? Surely he didn't want them both to leave her behind! What was back at the house that could be so important, anyway?

    Tommy narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to vent these frustrations, but Noah cut him off before he could get a word out.

    "It's your father--Hiro," he said. "He's injured. He might have left already, but if he's still there, it'd be a good idea to get him somewhere safe before he can finish bleeding out on the floor."

    Tommy froze, breath catching in his throat. Images flashed through his mind: his dad's body standing upright, wearing the suit he'd been buried in, shambling toward him with no spark of life behind his eyes. His skin with the complexion of a corpse, graveyard soil and the scent of death clinging to him. The flash of his rusted blade as he swung it towards Tommy. He shuddered, taking a step backwards and inadvertently bumping up against the edge of his sister's stretcher as he did so. Malina let out a disgruntled mumble, and he almost expected her to finally sit up and ask what was going on, but she still didn't wake up. Weren't those knockout drugs ever going to wear off?

    "That--that man who called you on the phone," Tommy stammered, curling his hands around the edge of the stretcher behind him to balance himself. "That wasn't my dad. Not really. It couldn't have been." Noah started to say something, but this time it was Tommy's turn to cut him off with a vehement shake of his head. "I-I don't know how it talked to you, but it was the zombie! It's just a zombie version of him, it's not really alive, and--"

    He fell silent as Noah stepped forward and grabbed him by the collar, fixing him with a stern glare.

    "Listen," he said through gritted teeth, "I just made the same mistake you're making right now. It's the reason why Claire is in that hospital. The voice I heard on the phone was a regular human being, and if you don't track him down in a hurry, you might not ever get the chance to see him again. Now, am I going with you, or will you go alone?"

    By the time Noah was finished speaking, he had relaxed his grip on Tommy's collar. With his glasses off, it was easy to see how tired his eyes were--the depth of the bags beneath them, the heaviness of his eyelids that matched the heaviness in his voice. Things clicked into place in Tommy's mind, and he suddenly got the impression that Noah's vague description of the events that had led to Claire and Malina's injuries and hospitalization had been a deliberate move. A way to avoid admitting to something. Discomfort stirred in his gut. If he didn't go back to the house he'd fled just a few hours earlier, would Hiro's fate be on his conscience?

    "…Okay, then," he mumbled. "I'll go by myself."

    Nodding, Noah stepped away from him, giving him room to teleport. As he was closing his eyes and focusing on the mental image of the living room, he heard Anne whisper something to Noah in an incredulous tone of voice. For a split-second as he vanished he wondered if he should have taken his mom with him--after all, Hiro had been her husband, even though she had apparently managed to move on with her life since losing him. But by the time that thought had crossed his mind, he had already reappeared in the living room.

    The first place his eyes were drawn was the hallway leading into the kitchen. A scattered trail of blood droplets led down the hall from the kitchen right to where he was standing near the bookshelf. He noticed that the abandoned phone was lying at his feet, although it was in a different position from when he'd dropped it. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he knelt down and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. There was a crack on the plastic outer casing of the cordless landline, but when he pressed the button to turn it on, it beeped to life like nothing was wrong. Those older kinds of phones really were built to last, he supposed. He laid the phone down atop the bookshelf, being careful to avoid stepping on the untouched pile of broken glass, and then followed the blood trail down the hall into the kitchen.

    As soon as he stepped into the kitchen, he wished he hadn't. Here the tiny droplets of blood congregated into a pool of the stuff next to the kitchen sink, seeping into the floor and staining the tiles dark red. Flopped lifelessly over the countertop, head dangling into the sink, was a figure that was marred nearly beyond recognition. Even without approaching any further--he couldn't have brought himself to move toward it even if he wanted to; it was like his feet were rooted to the floor--he could tell it was the zombie. He knew by the washed-out, deathly complexion of the hand that dangled limply at its side. The upper half of its body was covered in deep gouges, and although blood didn't gush from its wounds for lack of a beating heart to pump it, there was definitely some kind of fluid leaking out of a few of its grisly wounds. Bile rose in Tommy's throat at the sight of it, and he clamped his hand over his mouth, taking a staggering step backward. But even as his heart pounded like that of a pursued prey animal, his reeling mind was able to state the obvious.  _ I didn't do that _ . So if the zombie was dead now when neither he nor Anne had finished it off, that meant there really had been somebody else in the house. Someone who would have a reason to be there, and someone who would want to protect Tommy and Anne.  _ Someone like Hiro _ .

    It was then that he noticed that the zombie's sword was nowhere to be seen. And, of course, neither was a non-undead version of his dad. Gulping, he lowered his gaze back to the blood on the floor. That was… quite a bit of blood loss. And then out in the living room, the line of blood droplets just came to a sudden stop. Where had Hiro gone? And for that matter,  _ where _ could he have gone in such a condition? Tommy remembered hearing from someone that his dad had once been a… what was the phrase?  _ "Master of time and space" _ . But Tommy was the one who held that title now--he guessed so, anyway, although he still wasn't sure he quite deserved it. Hiro, he knew, had lost his old abilities a long time ago.

    "Shit," Tommy muttered aloud to himself. "What can I do?"

    Another set of recent memories came to him then, this time from during and directly after his escape from Bruce O'Brien's control. If Tommy was hurt and he wasn't sure where else to go, seeking out a friend or partner seemed like as good a strategy as any. Could Hiro have gone to his friend's apartment? Tommy could barely remember what either the location or the man who lived there looked like, since the whole ordeal had been so hectic, but he concentrated on the memory of the man (whose name he had already forgotten, but he wanted to say it was something like Andrew) stepping forward and firing a bolt of red lightning. It was that splash of colour that stood out in his mind the most.

    When he reappeared in the apartment, he breathed a sigh of relief. Sure enough, at a cursory glance around the place, it looked familiar--the same place Bruce had taken him before being brought down. In fact, he could still see a scorch mark on the wall where Bruce's body had slammed against it. He didn't see anyone around at the moment, though. Maybe he was in another room?

    "Hello?" Tommy called, heading over towards a door that he guessed led into a bedroom. "Dad? Mr, uh, Mr. Dad's friend? Are you here?"

    There was no response. Frowning, Tommy turned and walked back across the room to the door that led out into the hallway. He was a bit confused to find that the door was unlocked (the man must have been in his apartment somewhere, or else only be stepping out for a moment, because otherwise shouldn't he have locked the door?) but when he turned the knob and tried to push the door open, he was met with resistance from the other side. Tommy blinked in confusion at the yellow-and black stripes that he quickly recognized as police tape stretching across the outside of the door, blocking it off. Why would…?

_ Oh, right _ , he thought with a sinking feeling in his chest. Bruce had gone down from the man's attack, and he hadn't gotten back up. That meant that this apartment was technically the scene of a murder (the cops couldn't have known without evidence that Bruce had had it coming). He probably shouldn't hang around too long, then, in case the police came by and thought he looked suspicious. Tommy stepped back from the door and screwed up his face in concentration, preparing to leave, only to stop and realize that he had absolutely no idea where he was supposed to go next. If Hiro--assuming he really was alive--wasn't at their house or at his friend's apartment, then where else could he be?

    "Maybe I'm not going to find him," Tommy thought aloud, a wave of defeat settling over him like a heavy snowfall on a frail tree branch. "Maybe it's too late, and he's already gone. Maybe Noah's wrong, and he was never really back in the first place."

    With that, he let out a heavy sigh and teleported himself back to the area outside the burning hospital. If he wasn't going to be able to reunite with his dad, at least he would make sure to be there for his sister.

* * *

    The second time Claire came back to her senses, it was as a pair of sturdy arms wrapped around her and lifted her from the wall of scorching heat that surrounded her. She heard the crunch of boots against soot, and an achingly familiar voice anxiously muttering words she couldn't quite make out. Then, with a sudden jolt like an elevator dropping in reverse, she felt herself flying upwards.

    Wing stung at her cheeks as she rose through the air. Half-conscious, she snuggled up against the gentle warmth that encircled her, breathing in an outdoorsy scent--something like fallen leaves mixed with campfire smoke. Her fingers curled against what she vaguely recognized as the well-worn fabric of a jacket. Medically-induced sleep still clung to her senses just enough that her eyelids felt leaden when she tried to open them, and she was too groggy to properly process all that was happening, but as the air rushed around her and she cleared the vicinity of the burning heat, her mind sharpened enough to recognize that her lungs were clogged with smoke. Claire coughed, prompting the person carrying her to tighten their grip on her. She thought she knew who it was--that she'd recognized his voice--but she almost didn't want to open her eyes and see in case she was wrong. Still, who else could it be, who could fly her out of danger and make her feel so safe and secure in his arms?

    A few moments later, they set down on the ground. That voice rang out again, calling for help, and now she was positive she recognized it; her heart ached with nostalgia at the sound of it. Breaking through the haze of the mind-numbing anaesthetic, Claire opened her eyes and looked up at her uncle's worried face. Their gazes met, and for a moment, her lips curled into a smile and the lines of tension around his eyes relaxed as mutual relief washed over them.

    "…Peter," she whispered, bringing a hand up to run it along her uncle's cheek. His skin felt more weathered to the touch than it had been before, thanks in no small part to the thickness of his stubble. The rough texture matched the roughness in her own voice; she coughed again in an attempt to clear her throat.

    "Hey, Claire." He spoke with a smile, as though it had been no time at all since they'd seen each other last, but his eyes were glistening with tears and his voice cracked with emotion as he held her gaze. "You're safe now, okay? I've got you."

    She nodded, still managing to smile despite the choking sensation of the smoke in her lungs and her growing awareness of the prickling discomfort spread out across her skin. She  _ was _ safe, and Peter was there, and the fact that he was there and had saved her again was enough to make tears of joy and relief sting at her eyes.

    Still, at the same time, the pain was catching up with her, a faint prickle growing into a sharp, searing sting that made her wince. The deep, throbbing pain she had felt in her leg earlier was gone, but clearly she hadn't gotten out of the fire unscathed. It hurt. It hurt worse than she'd hurt in a long time. Her face contorted with a miasma of emotions as she let out a choking sob that escalated into a coughing fit. Peter held her close against his chest, his lips pressed atop her hair as they moved in the shape of comforting words, and he didn't move from that position until a nurse came running up to them and helped him lay Claire down onto a stretcher.

    Peter stood by her, holding her hand, as the nurse helped lay her down. When she turned her head to look at him, she noticed with a pang of bemusement that he'd let his bangs grow out long again, even longer than when they had first met. It definitely looked like some time had passed. What had he been doing the whole time he was gone, she wondered--hanging out in the woods or something?

    "You're really here, right?" she asked. "This isn't, like, some kind of dying vision?"

    "What? No, of course not," he assured her, clasping her hand more firmly in his own. "I'm here. I'm real."

    "Yeah, I guess…" She hummed in contemplation, tilting her head back to look up at the darkening sky. "I guess if it was a dying vision, Nathan would be here too."

    She regretted saying that as soon as the words had left her mouth. Without looking at him, she could picture the flinch that crossed Peter's face at the mention of his brother. Still, he kept his hand around hers, and his voice was even when he spoke, although she could hear the strained emotions beneath.

    "Yeah, I guess he would be."

    They were both silent for a while, the discomfort from what Claire had said without thinking hanging between them. She examined the dark indigo hue of the sky, decorated with slowly fading streaks of lighter blue-gray and a few tiny pinpricks of light, and let her mind wander. In the corner of her vision, she could see smoke still billowing up from the building, although the crackling of the flames wasn't audible over the anxious chatter of the other people gathered around them. It seemed like there was a pretty big crowd--that made sense, since it was a pretty big important building that was on fire. All this fire reminded her of her past, and she felt a pang of something close to nostalgia mixed with regret. If only she still had her powers… well, for one thing, she wouldn't be laying there on a stretcher covered in burns. For another thing, she could be the one saving others--pulling them out of the flames--instead of being the one who had to be saved. She wondered if her dad was there, and if he was alright. Then, remembering the circumstances of her hospitalization, she thought of her daughter. Was Malina okay? Had she gotten safely out of the building? Or had she even survived her injury in the first place?

    She must have lapsed back into unconsciousness for a minute or two, but the next thing she knew, she was wearing a plastic mask that filtered her breathing. She still felt the sturdy warmth of somebody holding her hand, but when she turned her head and opened her mouth to apologize to Peter for speaking carelessly, she instead saw her father looking down at her. Behind Noah stood a young man--a boy, really; he didn't look like he could be more than twenty--and, leaning against the boy's shoulder, Malina. Relief washed over Claire at the sight of her daughter. They must have managed to get her out of the hospital quickly, because she didn't have a speck of soot on her, and neither did Noah or the boy they were with.

    "Dad," Claire whispered, locking eyes with Noah and giving him a tired smile (the only kind she could manage at the moment, seeing as several large patches of her skin still felt like they were actively pressed against a stove grate). Her voice was muffled by the breathing apparatus she wore, and she had to resist the urge to tear it off. It was still strange to think that she actually needed a device like that--that her lungs weren't magically patching themselves back together after taking in so much smoke.

    "Claire," he breathed, tightening his grip around her hand. His voice was hoarse, not from smoke inhalation, but from emotion; she could see tears glistening in his eyes. "God, I'm so glad they finally got you out of there. You must absolutely hate me, after everything I put you through."

    "Well…"

    She grimaced at the memory of staring down the barrel of her father's gun. If things had played out just a little differently, she might very well have died at his hand. Still, knowing where he had been coming from--unwilling to believe that it could really be her, thinking it was some awful trick and that his surviving family may have been at risk--she couldn't promise that she wouldn't have done something similar in his position. In any case, if none of the things her father had done before had made her hate him, she doubted that the twinge of discomfort she felt in her gut when looking into his eyes would last long enough to brew into hatred. (She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in his glasses, confirming what she'd already been able to guess about the state of her appearance--skin covered in grisly black and red burns, including one that covered almost the whole right side of her face. The unease that spread through her at the sight of herself in that condition-- _ staying  _ in that condition, not automatically healing--far outmatched the unease brought on by her father's presence.) The important thing was, she was safe now--pretty fucked up from the fire, but that part wasn't Noah's fault. And Malina was safe, too.

    "No," she replied decisively. When he looked at her like he didn't know whether to believe her, she shook her head and said more forcefully, "No, of course not. What are you even saying? You're my  _ dad _ . I love you."

    A pained but relieved smile spread over Noah's face at that, and he pulled her into a hug. Pain sprang up in her skin when his arms pressed against her burns and she winced, biting down on her tongue to suppress a hiss of discomfort. Happiness swelled within her, and she hugged him back even though it physically hurt to do so. It seemed like things were, somehow, working out okay after all.

    Noah stepped back, keeping his hand on Claire's shoulder, and let Malina and the boy approach her. Malina was wearing a hospital gown, beneath which Claire could see some bandages wrapped around her torso, but she was grinning from ear to ear. Next to her, the boy was staring at her with wide, apprehensive eyes. She wondered for a moment who he was and why he was looking at her like that, but then something in her mind clicked together and she realized with a jolt of excitement that he must have been her son.

    "Um, hi," he said, hands fidgeting at his sides as he stepped towards her. "I'm Tommy. Apparently I was originally gonna be called Nathan, but by the time I found out about all that I'd already been Tommy for so long that it would've felt weird to change my name, so… yeah." Malina nudged him in the side with her elbow, and he gave her the exact sort of sideways look that Claire and Lyle had often given each other in their youths. Then he turned back to Claire with a nervous smile, bouncing slightly on his heels. "But, um, yeah. I'm your son."

    Claire broke into a grin at the confirmation of her guess. She reached out to take Tommy's hand, while extending her other hand to cup Malina's cheek as her daughter leaned over her. She could feel tears beginning to bubble up in her eyes, and she saw them forming in the corners of the twins' eyes as well. She let out a shaky laugh of amazement at the fact that she, who had died in childbirth, was alive and getting to meet her children. Then, laughing louder as tears began to spill from her eyes, she grabbed Tommy and Malina and pulled them both into a tight hug. They hugged back, tight enough to make Claire's injured body scream in protest but her heart explode with joy, and for a long moment the three of them simply held each other and grinned and cried.

    "You're really alright?" Claire asked Malina once they had reluctantly let go of each other. "Did the doctors say if there'd be any complications, or…?"

    "Yeah, no, I'm fine," Malina said, still smiling from ear to ear. "I mean, not totally fine yet--the doctors say I'll need a few stitches--but I'm going to be okay! What about you?" she added, gaze darkening as she looked Claire up and down.

    "Oh, I've been through worse," she said with a wry chuckle. "It's just that the damage doesn't usually stick around for quite so long."

    "I almost feel like I should say sorry," Tommy mused. "From what I understand, it's because of me that you don't have healing powers like you used to."

    "Don't be ridiculous," Malina told her brother with a shake of her head. "It's not like it was a conscious decision for you to take her power while we were being born."

    "Exactly," Claire agreed. "All of this, as much as it sucks--" She gestured at herself with a grimace-- "It's not really anybody's fault. Not one specific person's fault, anyway."

    "That reminds me, I wonder how the fire started?" Tommy mused, glancing over Claire's shoulder at the hospital. It looked like firefighters had finally managed to put out the flames, but the damage was done; the building was a smoldering wreck. "Apparently the wing where you were being operated on was the first place to catch fire. If you--if you hadn't made it out of there--before I'd even gotten a chance to meet you…" He gulped, wrapping his hand around Claire's wrist. "Well, it's a good thing the doctors were able to get you out of there in time, Mom."

    "Aw, Tommy…" she murmured, bringing her hand up to stroke her son's cheek. Then, not one to let a hero go uncredited: "But, actually, it wasn't any of the hospital staff who got me out of there. It was--"

    She trailed off, frowning, at the realization that her uncle had completely disappeared. Propping herself up on her elbows, she craned her neck to scan the crowd for him, but he was nowhere to be found. The breathing device over her face muffled her sense of smell, so she had no idea if the woodsy scent that had clung to his jacket still hung in the air or not. Where had he gone?

    “Huh,” she muttered. “He was just here with me a moment ago…“

    "Who was with you, Claire-bear?" Noah asked, laying a hand on her shoulder and giving her a concerned look.

    "It was Peter," she told him. "He was here, he--he was the one who pulled me out of the flames."

    But as the words left her mouth, a seed of doubt took root in her mind.  _ Had  _ he been there? It had been so long since he'd disappeared from her life that she wasn't even sure if he was still alive. In fact, before her death, there had been days when she had been certain he was dead and Angela was covering it up. And that had been years ago, so… at this point, was it even possible for her uncle to have come out of hiding, only to vanish again as soon as her other family members showed up? How would he even have known where she was, or that she was in danger? ( _ He couldn't have been monitoring me all this time or something _ , she thought,  _ or else you'd think he would have stepped in a little earlier. _ )

    So, what, then? Was she crazy? She didn't think so, but…

    "Well, I was kinda out of it," she mumbled, lowering her gaze and shrugging. "Maybe it really was a nurse or doctor. Maybe it was all in my head."

    Still, as her dad and her children clustered around and continued fussing over her, she cast her gaze skyward once again. Who else was standing under that same deep indigo sky, she wondered? Whether she had imagined his presence or not, she hoped that wherever Peter was, he was alright. She hoped that everyone was alright, wherever they were--her mom and brother, her college not-quite-girlfriend, and all the other people whose lives had crossed paths with hers. But despite her hope that everyone was doing okay, the trails of smoke curling up into the sky from the wreckage of the hospital building didn't seem like a very good omen. Despite the warmth of her family members clustered around her, she shivered. Hopefully the waves of unease rolling through her would settle soon enough, but at the moment, she couldn't shake the feeling that nobody was home free just yet.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everyone is faring well after their run-ins with the zombies, and the threat has yet to be completely vanquished. Tracy catches up with a friend. Peter revisits a familiar location. Kimiko has to leave work early.

    Hiro made sure he was balanced firmly on his feet before teleporting back to Kimiko’s house. If he appeared in the living room sprawled out on his back or slumped against a wall, Ando would worry about him more than necessary. He took a few deep breaths, trying not to wince in pain with every contraction of his stomach muscles, and focused on his destination.

    Ando was sitting on the couch watching the TV with a deep frown when Hiro appeared in the living room. At the sound of Hiro's entrance, he glanced up, instantly alert. For a moment, as their gazes met, Ando's eyes lit up and he broke into a smile.

    "Oh, Hiro, you're back!" he said, turning the TV off and moving to stand up and walk to him. Then, as his gaze flickered down from Hiro's face to the hilt of the sword protruding from his gut, he froze in place; his smile dropped away, replaced by a gape. "…Hiro? Wh-what happened?!"

    "I'm sorry, my love," Hiro told him, forcing his lips into a smile despite the pain still coursing through him. Blood was still dribbling out of the puncture wound, dripping onto the carpet, and it occurred to him that Kimiko would be very angry if she came home to find him bleeding all over her floor. "I was careless. At least this time I came back quickly, just like I promised."

    He took a staggering step forward, only for his knees to buckle under him. Ando rushed forward and caught him as he fell. Hiro blinked gratefully at his husband, whose eyes were wide with distress as he looked Hiro up and down. Ando's hand came to rest on the hilt of the blade, while his other hand was wrapped around Hiro's back, holding him upright.

    "Hiro, this… this is your sword, isn't it?" Ando whispered. "How did this happen? Who did this to you?"

    "It's a long story," Hiro told him--although it wasn't really so much a long story as one he didn't know all the details of himself. "On the news… did you see anything about zombies?"

    "Zombies?" Brow furrowing, Ando glanced over his shoulder at the TV, then back at Hiro. "Wait, I-I _did_ see something about that! Is that what happened? Did they attack you?"

    Hiro nodded, swallowing hard as a trickle of blood rose in his throat. With every inch of movement, he could feel the blade moving deeper inside of him, and it took everything he had not to break down in tears. He was terrified. He didn't want to die, not like this, not if it meant leaving behind the people who loved him all over again. But he could taste his own blood on his tongue, and his fingers were starting to feel numb, and it just _hurt so much_.

    "There was one zombie," he said. "At the house. It looked like me. I destroyed it, but…" He gestured to the sword sticking out of his abdomen, face contorting in pain as he did so. "It stabbed me."

    "Shit," Ando muttered. He paused for a moment, fingers curling against the fabric of Hiro's jacket, before saying "I don't think I can take you to a hospital."

    "What?" Hiro's eyes widened, and his heart stuttered at his husband's words. "Why not?"

    "I was just watching a news broadcast that said the nearest hospital was attacked and had to be evacuated," Ando explained. He looked down at the carpet as he spoke, not meeting Hiro's gaze. "Now there are cops stationed at every hospital in the city to make sure it doesn't happen again. And I'm still a criminal suspect in a murder case."

     _Ah. Right._ Hiro grimaced, unable to muster a scrap of his usual optimism in the face of such a situation. He wouldn't ask Ando to risk getting arrested for his sake. At some point several years ago he might have--in fact, he might have expected it as the kind of sacrifice any good sidekick would make for their hero. But things were different between them now. Now, as much as the thought of death made him tremble, he knew deep in his heart that his husband's wellbeing was all that mattered.

    "In that case," he said slowly, with a tremble in his voice despite his best efforts, "This is the end of the line."

    "No!" Ando shook his head vehemently, pulling Hiro closer to his chest. "No, I can find another way--I can save you! Just…" He trailed off, muttering to himself, as he glanced around the room. "…I can lay you down, and… and Kimiko should have something in her medicine cabinet I can use…"

    Keeping one hand on Hiro's back and hooking the other under his legs, Ando pushed himself to his feet with a grunt of effort. Hiro shifted slightly to adjust his position in his husband's arms, wrapping his arms around his shoulders to better secure himself, as Ando ran down the hall past the guest room and into Kimiko's bedroom. After taking one hand off of Hiro for a moment so he could open the door, Ando walked to her bed and laid Hiro down gently atop the neatly pressed linen sheets. At this point, Hiro let his eyelids flutter shut. The pain circling through him was slowly dulling, but he was starting to feel cold, and he could no longer feel the warmth of Ando's shoulders or the texture of his shirt fabric against his fingers. Keeping his eyes open just seemed like too much of an effort. He knew he was in good hands now--well, maybe not the best hands he could have been in, since Ando was decidedly not a medical professional--but nevertheless, he had implicit trust in his husband's ability to save him.

    He heard Ando leave the room, muttering anxiously to himself under his breath, and then come back in a few moments later. He laid his hand atop Hiro's and gave it a gentle, assuring squeeze; Hiro managed to smile at the gesture. Now that the pain was fading into numbness, it was easier to smile, but harder to hold back the tears that were welling up in his eyes. Ando murmured something that he couldn't quite make out, but he understood it as a cue that he was about to begin the task of treating his wound. And of course that would mean removing the sword that was embedded in his gut. Giving a nod of acknowledgement, Hiro drew in a shaky breath and braced himself for the blade's removal.

    Sure enough, a sharp new pain shot through him, accompanied by a _schlick_ as the sword slid out of him. Hiro whimpered, clutching at Ando's hand as though it were a lifeline anchoring him to the world of the living. Barely a moment later, he felt something cold splash onto his stomach, soaking through his shirt and causing a stinging sensation when it seeped into the wound. Screwing up his face, he bit down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out, but he couldn't fight the urge to writhe around in response to the bubbling, fizzing pain in his abdomen.

    "Hey, stop squirming around," Ando said sharply. Then, in a gentler voice that was thick with anxiety: "It's going to be okay, Hiro. I've got you."

    Hiro cracked one eye open to see what supplies Ando was using. He'd put on a pair of latex gloves and rolled up his sleeves; an open bottle of rubbing alcohol sat on the bedside table next to a bag of cotton balls and a package of bandages. There wasn't anything that looked like it could be used to sew up a wound, which Hiro frowned at; although he certainly wasn't an authority on medical operations, he got the feeling that the hole in his stomach would require a bit more than a bandage to patch it up.

    "You need to press down harder against the injury to stop the bleeding," he instructed, remembering something he'd learned from many hours of watching action movies. "And make sure everything you're using is clean."

    "Yeah, of course," Ando replied. He retracted the cloth he was using, flipped it over in his hand, and poured more rubbing alcohol onto the fresh side before pressing it back down against Hiro's injury, a little more firmly this time. "Now, hold on, I need to look something up."

    Hiro nodded, reluctantly letting go of his husband's hand so he could pick up his phone. Keeping the cloth pressed against the wound, Ando peeled off the latex glove before grabbing his phone--or rather Kimiko's phone, judging by its rose gold case--off the bedside table and scrolling through it. As he did so, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

    "Okay," he muttered aloud, eyes flickering back and forth between Hiro and his phone screen. "I need to keep the pressure on for at least five minutes, and then, um--shit, maybe I shouldn't have  used rubbing alcohol…"

    "It's okay, Ando," Hiro told him, giving him a reassuring smile despite the burning sensation from the rubbing alcohol and the tiredness beginning to seep through him. "You're doing well. I believe in you."

    "You really think so?" A pained smile flashed across Ando's face when Hiro nodded in confirmation. "Th-thanks. I've had to patch up a few of my own injuries since I started--well, when you were gone, you know--I was trying to be a vigilante, fighting crime the way you always wanted us to do together. And sometimes I had to patch myself up when I got hurt, or Kimiko had to do it for me."

    "Ah, so you do have some experience with this," Hiro said. He relaxed slightly, already feeling just a bit safer. "No wonder you're doing a good job." Then, eyes widening as he processed his husband's words: "Wait, you've gotten hurt like this? How many times?"

    "Well, it's never been anything quite this bad," Ando amended. "But, yeah, of course I got hurt. Without you by my side, it's not like I can just teleport out of danger."

    "Oh." A pang of guilt struck at Hiro's heart when he heard the inflection of his husband's voice. He didn't sound upset, necessarily, just… sad. Wistful. Lifting his hand to grasp at Ando's rolled-up shirt sleeve, he held his gaze intently. "If you were getting hurt, you shouldn't have kept doing it. Of course I want you to be a hero, but… but I need you to be safe. You're the most important person in my life."

    Ando's eyes widened, and through the faint red-tinted blur in his vision, Hiro noticed that his husband's eyes were brimming with tears. The weight pressed against his injury increased as Ando curled his hand into a trembling fist.

    "Don't--why are you talking like that, Hiro?" he demanded, shaking his head. "It makes it sound like you're trying to say goodbye."

    Hiro opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal--he wasn't _trying_ to say goodbye, he wanted to live, to have many more years ahead of him to spend at his husband's side--but he couldn't find the right words to offer that assurance without also confessing his underlying fear that he wouldn't survive despite both their best efforts. Instead, he simply sighed and shook his head. Still, something about the look in Ando's eyes told him that he understood. They lapsed into silence then, with Hiro closing his eyes again once the urge to sleep began to overtake him. He wasn't sure how much time passed until the weight of the cloth retracted from his wound, and the weight of the bed shifted as Ando stood up.

    "That was five minutes, I think," he said. "I've got to go look for some gauze now--something to wrap the injury with. I'll just be a minute, okay?"

    Hiro gave him a murmur of acknowledgement. Everything around him felt vaguely muffled, as though he were submerged in water; the taste of blood in his mouth had grown stale. The burning sensation of the rubbing alcohol disinfecting his injury had kept him awake up until that point, but now that feeling had died down, and it was all he could do to hold desperately on to his consciousness. He feared that if he let himself pass out, he wouldn't wake up again.

    Just before he left, Ando paused and let out a heavy sigh. Hiro felt something soft brush against the top of his head, and recognized it as his husband running his fingers through his hair. He was struck with the impulse to chide him for not putting the latex glove back on--it wasn't properly hygienic to be touching an injured person with bare hands--but it was a pleasant sensation, so instead he smiled and leaned into the touch.

    "I'm serious, Hiro," Ando murmured in a low voice. "Hang on for me. I love you, and I can't lose you again."

* * *

    Honestly, even if the cabin was a little too rustic for Tracy's tastes, she had to admit it had a cozy atmosphere. The wooden logs that formed the main structure were well-furnished and seemed sturdy--they weren't creaking in the wind, anyway--and there was a definite charm to all the little knickknacks that covered the various walls, shelves, and counters. There was one high-mounted shelf in the living room that was full of clocks and watches, all set to different time zones but apparently all ticking exactly on time. The sun had gone down a few minutes ago, so the front window was closed to prevent the room from getting too chilly, but the curtains were still open and through the window she could see the rows of trees stretching into the darkness with stars twinkling above. The cat was cute, and friendlier than expected; it had jumped right up onto her lap and started kneading at her legs a few minutes after Peter took off. Unfortunately, when the cat dug its claws into her legs, she turned her legs to water as an almost second-nature defense mechanism, and the cat hadn't seemed to like that too much. Now it was in Sylar's lap again, purring away as he stroked its silky black fur and murmured things to it in a baby-talk voice.

    Glancing over her shoulder at the shelf of clocks on the wall behind her, Tracy sighed, drumming her fingers against the arm of the rocking chair she reclined in. It had a distinctively handmade look to it, although still well-assembled and varnished. After Peter left, Sylar had suggested that she, Micah, and Miko move out into the living room while he stayed in the kitchen to make them some tea. She was pretty sure he had just wanted to be alone for a while so he could brood about his boyfriend's departure, but true to his word, he had come back out a few minutes later with cups of tea for everyone--mint for Tracy, chamomile with honey for Micah, and earl gray for Miko. Now, they were sitting around in the living room, waiting for… something. For Peter to get back, presumably, among other things. Micah and Miko were engaged in conversation, although Tracy could only understand about half of it since they kept switching between English and Japanese--not that she cared that much what they were talking about, as it sounded like their conversation pertained mostly to video games. They were sitting together on a cushioned two-person seat that didn't look as handmade as a lot of the other things in the cabin, but rather like something from an IKEA catalogue. She would have been pretty damn impressed at Peter and Sylar for having put together this home and so many of the things in it, but considering what she knew of Sylar's ability, it came as no huge surprise that he'd be capable of such a thing.

    She took another sip of her tea, closing her eyes and breathing in the warm steam wafting from the top of the cup. The cup felt so warm against her hands, and the liquid so warm against her tongue and her throat and within her when she swallowed it down. At one point she may have recoiled from such heat, remembering a time when it had made her feel trapped and helpless, but now it brought her a sense of ease and comfort. She felt grounded, sitting with a solid surface beneath her and holding a solid object in her hands. Even after a couple of days, the fact that she was really out of that _stupid fucking lake_ still felt almost too good to be true.

    "Hold on," she spoke aloud suddenly as a thought crossed her mind. Sylar looked up at her, raising his eyebrows; she pursed her lips and shook her head to indicate that she wasn't talking to him. Turning to her nephew and his friend, she said: "I should call Noah back and tell him I'm okay. I called him years ago, just before I got trapped, and now we see him on the news… do you think you could lend me your phone for a moment or two?"

    "Is that okay?" Micah asked Miko; she nodded and handed him her phone, which he in turn handed to Tracy. "Okay, here you go."

    "Thanks," she replied.

    Pulling up the phone app, she got up and walked back over into the kitchen so the others wouldn't listen in. (Not that she planned to tell Noah anything she would want to hide, but still… she didn't want them staring down her back while she was talking to a friend, especially not Sylar.) After dialing in Noah's cellphone number, she leaned against the kitchen counter and waited while the phone rang. The phone rang a total of five times before going to voicemail: _"Hi, you've reached Noah Bennet. Please leave a message after the tone."_

    "Uh, hey, Noah," she said once the phone had beeped to signal the start of the voicemail recording. "Guess who's back among the living. Not that I was ever exactly dead, I guess, but it sure felt like it sometimes… anyway, just wanted to let you know that I'm doing alright now. Micah is with me right now, and he's doing fine too."

    She paused, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the others weren't listening (they weren't; Micah had immediately gone back to talking with Miko, who was now showing her sword off to him, and Sylar was still petting the cat) before she continued.

    "So, I saw you on that news report. Trying to get into a burning building, are you? I have no idea what was happening there, Noah, but you had better not be going crazy or something. Peter flew off to look for you, so… well, maybe he'll already be there by the time you get this message. Either way, though…" She trailed off, shaking her head and sighing. "God, I don't even know what to tell you. So much crazy shit has been going on lately. I just want to be done with it, you know? Uh, anyway, that's all. Talk to you later, I guess."

    She ended the call and headed back into the living room, where she tossed the phone back to Miko. However, less than a minute after she sat back down and picked up her cup of tea to have another sip, the phone vibrated and started playing a synthpop ringtone. Miko glanced at the name displayed on the screen before handing it back over to Tracy, who stood back up to take the call.

    "Hello?" she greeted Noah as she lifted the phone to her ear.

    "Sorry I missed your call," he replied. His voice came through the line loud enough for the others to hear; wincing, she turned down the in-call volume and circled back around to the kitchen so they wouldn't listen in. "A lot's been happening on my side of things as well. I'm glad to hear you're doing alright now."

    There was a strain of tiredness to his voice, but that was nothing new. In fact, beneath the weariness in his tone, he sounded… happy. Relieved, even. She could picture a smile on his face as he spoke, and the mental image made her smile as well. In the background of the call she could hear other people talking, but not loud enough to pick out individual voices.

    "So, what happened with you?" she asked him, holding the phone in place with her shoulder so she could roll the smooth ceramic sides of the teacup back and forth between her palms. "You don't sound like you're in or around a fire now. I'm assuming you got out okay?"

    "Oh, yes, I'm perfectly fine," he assured her. "It wasn't myself I was worried about," he added, voice dropping a few decibels. "It was Claire."

    "Claire?" Tracy echoed, brows pinching together. _So that’s why he sounded so desperate,_ she thought--but that didn't mean Noah's daughter was really alive. It just meant he _thought_ she was alive. And, if the zombies she and the other people in the cabin had fought off a couple hours earlier were anything to go by, there could be all sorts of less-than-savoury explanations for the sudden reappearance of a dead loved one.

    "I know, I know," Noah replied, letting out an awkward breathy laugh (she would have thought it was forced, but she honestly couldn't tell). "It sounds crazy, doesn't it? But she's alive. Injured--badly injured, thanks in part to my own ignorance--but alive."

    "Alright," Tracy said slowly, narrowing her eyes. She took another sip of tea, then set the cup down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. "In that case, let me talk to her."

    "You want to--oh. I see," he said, voice sharpening with recognition. "You don't quite believe me, do you? Well, I made that mistake myself, and it only led to trouble. So, sure, I'll let her talk to you."

    Tracy waited a moment, pacing back and forth across the wooden floorboards. The iridescent lightbulb hanging from the ceiling flickered; its yellowish glow illuminated dust mites hanging in the air. Mounted on the wall was yet another clock, this one an old-fashioned one with a thick frame and intricately designed hands. On the counter opposite the sink sat a portable stereo with a small stack of CD cases next to it. There were a few dishes piled up in the sink--no dishwasher, obviously--but not an amount that would indicate laziness from the cabin's inhabitants. All in all, it really was the kind of space that felt like a home. Not _her_ home (again, it was decidedly not her style) but definitely _a_ home to the people who lived there. And as little as she would have wanted to be a part of that specific lifestyle, the lived-in atmosphere made her chest ache with longing. Would she ever find a place or person or _anything_ that made her feel at home? Or would she just be a wandering loner forever?

    Her neck began to ache from tilting her head to the side, so she uncrossed her arms and took the phone back into her hand. Just then, after several seconds' worth of muffled chatter and the shuffling sound of one person passing the phone to another, she heard the weary, scratchy voice of a young woman on the other end of the line.

    "Uh, hey, Tracy. You wanted to talk to me?"

    Well, it certainly didn't sound like a zombie. Not like the zombies they’d fought at the hospital, anyway. Those things hadn't spoken, and from what Micah had told her about his encounter with one of them in the hallway and what Peter and Sylar had recounted of their battle in the parking lot, the zombies' lights hadn't really been on upstairs. However, the voice that spoke to her now was not only muffled and echoey--like the person was speaking through some kind of mask--but it also sounded like their throat had been put through a paper shredder. Tracy had only met Claire a few times to begin with; she'd be damned if she was supposed to be able to determine whether or not the voice was hers when it sounded like that. Still, she answered as casually as if she was an old friend just calling to catch up.

    "Yeah, if you don't mind," she said. "Noah said you were injured--you don't have healing powers anymore?"

    "Oh, yeah, no. Not for a while," maybe-Claire responded. "That's how I died in the first place, you know. Losing my powers. But, um, I'm back now, so…"

    "Right. And how exactly did you come back to life without your abilities?"

    "Honestly, I'm still trying to figure that one out for myself." She laughed, only to break off into a coughing fit. Tracy heard Noah mutter something worriedly, and Claire said something back that she couldn't make out before addressing Tracy again. "I kind of lost my memories of the past few years. Or rather, I think my memories of that time were stolen. I'm starting to remember some stuff now, though. There were these two people I was working for, and I think one of them's a necromancer or something--she brought me back to life so I could work for her."

    While she was talking, Tracy stopped to take a long sip of tea and then resumed her pacing. Her mind spun with confusion and apprehension. Could Claire actually be telling the truth? And if some sort of necromancer really was responsible for her resurrection, could that same necromancer possibly have something to do with the zombies?

    "What was this necromancer like?" she pressed. "What kind of work did they make you do for them? Do you know where they are now?"

    "Uh, she--" Claire began, only to break off. The next voice to come through the phone line was Noah's again:

    "That's enough questions for now," he said sharply. "Let her rest. She can talk to you more tomorrow, if she's up for it."

    "Fine," Tracy sighed. She still wasn't sure whether or not to believe all this stuff about Claire, but Noah could take care of himself. If the situation turned out to not be what it seemed, she didn't doubt that he'd figure it out and deal with it accordingly. "Sure, yeah. We can talk again tomorrow. Bye for now, then."

    This time when she came back into the living room, Sylar's gaze bored into her. His hand still rested against his cat's back, giving him the aura of a supervillain from an old movie. She took another sip of tea and gave him a questioning look over the rim of the cup as she sat back down, propping her legs up on the coffee table with one leg folded over the other.

    "Well?" he prompted after a beat. "What did Mr. Bennet have to say for himself?"

    "Apparently those zombies from the hospital aren't the only walking dead we've got going on," she told him. When he kept staring at her, she added, "He didn't mention anything about Peter, if that's what you're asking. But don't worry, I'm sure he's fine. He's got the same powers as you, and that includes healing, right?"

    Sylar lowered his gaze and didn't reply. She got the feeling they were both thinking of the same thing: the incident a few weeks back, when Peter had ended up at the bottom of the lake with a sharp object jammed through his skull. Had his body not been deposited in the same lake where she'd resided, it was safe to say that he never would have returned. But that event must have served as some sort of wake-up call to Peter, and he'd be more careful this time, wouldn't he? Surely, by now, he had to know better than to rush into danger.

* * *

    Guilt for abandoning his niece tugged at the back of Peter's mind as he flew, but he knew he had done the right thing. He'd gotten Claire out of the building, to safety, and now the doctors would look after her. Maybe he could come back and see her again later, once the whole situation with the undead was taken care of. Until then, being around her would only put her in danger.

    It was her mentioning Nathan that had made things slide into place in his mind. Despite what some people may have thought, he wasn’t an idiot--he could put two and two together when provided with enough information. The way that the zombies only seemed to target certain people was no coincidence. The two zombies they'd fought in the parking lot at the Tokyo hospital, the ones that had only targeted Sylar, must have been former victims of his. As strong a twinge of discomfort it brought him to acknowledge it, the way the tops of their heads had been sawed off couldn't be a coincidence. In fact, he was willing to bet he knew exactly who they were. He didn't recall the name of the radioactive man, whose explosive powers had nearly destroyed New York so many years ago, but he was acquainted with that ability all too well. And the one with the electric powers must have been Elle. Sylar didn't like to talk about her much--he didn't like to talk about any of his victims, but Peter got the impression that there had been something between Sylar and Elle at some point that went deeper than him just taking her powers.

    And then the zombies that had attacked Micah… he'd said that one of them could phase through things, and Tracy said the other one had thrown him across the room, which sounded a bit like superstrength to him. And now that he thought about it, weren't those the same abilities that had belonged to Micah's parents? Added up, it could almost still be chalked up to coincidence, but then… a fire had started, suddenly and mysteriously, at the Los Angeles hospital while Claire was inside. Starting fires, he recalled, had been the ability of her biological mother. All those things put together _couldn't_ be a coincidence. The zombies were specifically targeting people who, one way or another, had made an impact on their lives.

    So, with that in mind… if Peter and Claire had remained in the same place for too long, it was very likely that Nathan really would have shown up as well. Or rather, a mindless undead version of him would have shown up. That was why Peter couldn't stick around, and had taken off as soon as Claire had fallen asleep. He already knew from the news broadcast that Noah was in the vicinity; he could take care of her. She was safer this way. Because, as much as Nathan had cared for his daughter, Peter knew in his gut that he would be the one who his brother's undead husk would lock onto as a target. And he couldn't be around other people when that happened, or else he'd be putting those people in danger.

    So now he was flying low over the treetops deep in the woods, a few miles outside of Atikokan. He knew he couldn't go back to the cabin either, because as much as he trusted Sylar and Tracy's abilities to take care of any undead threats, he didn't know what his boyfriend and their guests were getting up to in his absence and he didn't want to run the risk of endangering Micah and his mysterious sword-wielding friend. Still, he wanted to be close enough to the cabin that he'd be able to get back there quickly if anything bad happened.

    Scouring the scenery below, he searched for a good place to fight. It was hard to see anything now that it was dark out, but he could just make out the shapes of tree branches, dark against dark in the deep indigo sky. A few autumn leaves still clung to some of the deciduous trees; the coniferous trees bore silvery dustings of snow. A chill evening breeze whistled through the air, tossing Peter's bangs into his eyes and tugging at his coattails. Humming absentmindedly, he reached down to brush his hand against the top of a pine tree, enjoying the texture of the needles between his fingers. Then, with a slight shake of his head, he reminded himself why he was out flying around. Casting his gaze upwards, he squinted against the darkness and searched for any strange figures hovering on the horizon. The stars were covered up by pale gray clouds, but the yellowish glow of the moon shone through the cloud cover and illuminated the forest. Other than the steady red blink of a satellite passing by somewhere in the distance, there was nothing to be seen.

    Sighing, Peter swooped down and came to rest in the crook of the highest sturdy branch of an old maple tree. The bark was cool and rough and slightly damp to the touch; he felt something brush against the back of his hand and flinched slightly, but a quick glance at what had touched him revealed that it was just a leaf. He leaned back against the trunk of the tree, closing his eyes and letting his legs sway idly back and forth as they dangled off the edge of the branch. Being out in the woods at night had a certain magical quality to it: the scent of the trees; the breeze blowing against his face, ruffling his hair and the sleeves of his jacket; the sounds of pine needles rustling and small creatures scurrying and the occasional distant hoot of an owl. Even under the stressful circumstances, it made him relax, his worries momentarily forgotten.

    He remembered his worries quickly enough as a sudden rustling noise not unlike the flapping of fabric burst through the air behind him. Snapping to attention, he elevated himself off the tree branch and turned to face the source of the sound. Rather than a zombified version of his brother, the only sight that met his eyes were tree branches hitting each other in the wind. Even so, his muscles remained tense with the reminder of what he was out here to do; he kept his senses peeled for any signs of an attacker's approach as he continued on his flight.

    Something glimmering in the distance caught his eye. Angling himself upwards so he could get a broader aerial view of the forest, Peter identified the large patch of glimmering dark blue a half-mile or so away as Lake Ghiacciato. Squinting at the distant gleam of the lake, he hummed in contemplation. Camping season was officially over, and with the time of the season combined with the time of night, he seriously doubted anyone would be out for a swim unless they were participating in some sort of social media challenge. And sinking a zombie into a lake did seem like an efficient way to dispose of it, compared to just leaving a mangled dead body lying in the woods somewhere…

    While he approached the lake, he gave a thorough scan of its perimeter to assure that the shoreline was completely empty. After ascertaining that there was nobody around to see him or get involved in the potential danger, he swooped down to hover directly over the water, with his heels just barely brushing against the thin layer of ice that had formed over the water's surface. For a long moment, he waited, staring up at the sky and seeing nothing even as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. He ran his hands up and down his arms in an attempt to combat the chilling winds that blew over the lake, but the cold sunk into him right to the bone.

    Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably just a few minutes, a sudden moment in the sky caught his attention. He tensed up, raising his fists, as a dark-against-dark blur bore down on him with the speed of a falcon swooping toward its prey. Just before it could crash into him, Peter swung his fist, igniting it with radiation as he did so. His fist connected with something firm but soft, and sure enough, the thing he sent flying backwards was none other than an undead body in his brother's shape. It moved too quickly for him to see its face--he didn't _want_ to see its face, to look into Nathan's lifeless eyes--but he recognized the rumpled and dirtied suit it wore as the suit Nathan had been buried in.

    Of course, switching over to a different power meant that he stopped hovering, but his feet touched down lightly enough upon the surface of the ice that it only cracked ever so slightly under his weight. The zombie hit the ice a bit harder, and skidded to a stop several feet away before climbing back up with a guttural growl. It launched itself into the air and then flung itself back down at Peter like a missile, arms extended. Heart rate picking up as the adrenaline of the fight ignited within him and distracted him from the visceral unpleasantness of what he was going up against, Peter switched back over to flight and went up as the zombie went down. The zombie quickly righted its course and pursued him into the sky, at which point Peter fired off a lightning bolt, aimed squarely at its chest. The bolt connected--not dead-on, but rather it hit the zombie's left shoulder and blasted a chunk of flesh right off of it. Peter cringed despite himself; he swallowed down a bit of bile that rose in his throat at the sight of exposed bone where pale sunken skin and gray half-rotten flesh were freshly burnt away.

    In the moment that he was distracted by disgust, the zombie flew toward him and grabbed him by the throat. Peter gasped, bringing his hands up to wrap around the zombie's wrist to pull its hand off of him. Before he could do that, the zombie was already pushing him downwards, toward the lake. In that moment, Peter's mind went blank, filled with nothing but a rush of panic. Then, just as his hands closed around the zombie's wrist, he inadvertently locked eyes with it. Just as he thought, those eyes were hollow and glassy, with no thought or emotion behind them. They weren't his brother's eyes, which were always sharp with wisdom or clouded with conflicted feelings or both. But the face they belonged to had the shape of Nathan's face. And for a split second, the second he could have used to tear the zombie's hand away from his throat and get out from under its grip, he froze. He couldn't tear his eyes away from how _wrong_ it looked. It was almost like seeing Sylar take on his brother's appearance all over again, but different. This time, it wasn't a masquerade. This time, it was just his body. His moving body, which had its hand extended and squeezing his throat.

    Then the back of Peter's head connected with something hard and cold and sharp, and he heard a loud _crack_. The last thing he felt before blacking out was the shock of ice cold water enveloping him.

* * *

    Despite her ex-husband and other people she knew often giving her flack for it, Sandra had the bad habit of keeping her cellphone turned off and not checking it even when she brought it with her on errands. Other times, she left it at home altogether. Earlier that day, when she had gone out to pick up some more dog food and buy a scratch ticket, she hadn't bothered to bring her phone. To tell the truth, she'd mostly gone out so that her daughter could have some alone time. She got the feeling that Claire had a lot of things to think about, and as thrilled as Sandra was that they'd been reunited, she didn't want to crowd her daughter too much. She still had yet to hear back from Noah, and Lyle had already left town again, so with Sandra out of the way and keeping herself busy elsewhere, Claire would have a nice, peaceful afternoon by herself to mull things over as needed.

    When Sandra had come home a little under two hours later, after a lengthy drive around town that gave her the chance to ruminate on a few things as well, she had immediately realized that something was wrong. For one thing, there was a… not a _strange_ car in the driveway, but rather Claire's old car, and it was strange that it was in the driveway now because the last she'd heard Noah had given that old car to Claire's daughter. For another thing, when she knocked on the door, nobody answered--apart from Mr. Muggles, who barked up a frenzy as per usual, but the elderly pomeranian appeared to be the only one home.

    Sandra grew increasingly confused, bordering on worried upon unlocking the door and stepping inside to find that her daughter really was nowhere to be found. After searching the house and calling out Claire's name a few times with no response, Sandra paused in the middle of the kitchen, leaning against the counter with one hand to steady herself and bringing her other hand up to massage her temples. A long, shaky sigh escaped her lips. For a moment she wondered, _Am I crazy?_ Could it be that she'd finally been driven mad from years of pent-up grief, and she had just hallucinated her daughter's return? That didn't explain the car in the driveway, but--hell, maybe she'd hallucinated that too. It made about as much sense as anything in her family's lives ever had.

    It was then that she noticed her cellphone lying facedown on the table a few feet away. Drawing in a deep breath, Sandra straightened up and tried to pull herself together before reaching over and grabbing her phone. Turning it on revealed three missed calls from Noah; it looked like he'd left messages too, but she had long ago forgotten her voicemail password, and so she had no way of accessing them. Instead, she pulled up her phone app and selected her ex-husband's number. The phone barely had the chance to ring once before he answered.

    "Finally you call me back," he snapped. She flinched at the sharpness of his voice--not because she thought it was directed at her, but because she knew it wasn't. She'd been with Noah long enough to recognize when he was mad at her, mad at someone else, or mad at himself. This time, it sounded like the latter. "Where were you? Why weren't you at the house with Claire earlier?"

    "I was just out running some errands," she told him, frowning in concern. "I figured she needed some space after everything she's been through. What happened?" she added when he didn't immediately respond. "Claire and I have been trying and trying to reach you, but you weren't answering our calls."

    "I had a few other things going on in my life," he replied. "You'd think one of you could have left a message so I would have known that Claire was alive. Maybe then this wouldn't have--"

    His voice grew louder and increasingly agitated as he spoke, before he promptly cut himself off, let out a tired sigh, and tried again.

    "Claire's at the hospital in LA. She's getting operated on, so visiting is off the table for now, but the doctors are optimistic. I'm at a coffee shop down the block with some old friends, if you're interested in joining us."

    Sandra's blood ran cold by the end of his first sentence. She remained silent, feeling as though her legs were rooted to the ground, until he was finished speaking, but she barely processed anything he said beyond _at the hospital_ and _getting operated on._ Her mind reeled, and she found herself reeling as well; she leaned against the kitchen table for balance, nails digging into the faded varnish of the wood. When it came to their daughter being at a hospital, there were two main incidents that sprung to her mind. One, during that second solar eclipse when she'd temporarily lost her powers and nearly died… and two, when she'd given birth, and this time the loss of her powers and her death had been permanent. Permanent up until a few weeks or months ago, anyway--however long Claire had said she'd been alive--but from what Sandra understood, Claire had returned to life this time by the hands of some mysterious stranger, not her own regenerative capabilities. Those powers, as far as Sandra knew, were still gone. If she lost her daughter again, she wouldn't come back.

    "…Like I said, the doctors think she'll pull through," Noah said after a long pause during which Sandra tried to express the shock and panic swirling through her but all that came out was frantic high-pitched stuttering. "No, they _know_ she'll pull through," he amended hastily, and she got the impression that he was making that part up but he still managed to sound confident enough that it brought her the tiniest scrap of assurance. "We'll be able to see her in another hour or so. In the meantime, I have a few other people to call, so… call me back if you need directions."

    "W-wait," she stammered, her mind finally catching up with her. "Why are you in Los Angeles?"

    "Because…" He paused, and she could picture him clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth on the other end of the line. "The doctors in Costa Verde weren't equipped for the operation."

    With that, he ended the call and left Sandra standing wide-eyed and slack-jawed in the middle of the kitchen. A few seconds after the soft click that signaled the end of the call, she released the curl of her fingers from around the phone and let it drop with a thunk onto the table, faceup this time so that the lit-up screen was visible. His words echoed in Sandra's mind, panic-inducing yet frustratingly vague. Claire was… injured? That must have been it, if she was getting operated on. But what had happened to her? How? Why? _It was supposed to be a peaceful afternoon, some alone time, it wasn't supposed to go like this…_

    At her feet, Mr. Muggles let out a wheezy bark, his gray-speckled muzzle drawn back in a snarl. Blinking, Sandra rubbed her eyes and shook her head to clear her mind. The _how_ and _why_ didn't matter right now; her daughter was in trouble. (Despite the circumstances, some small part of her was relieved at the confirmation brought by hearing someone else talk about Claire. She hadn't made it all up after all--it was real, she was alive, and even though she was hurt it sounded like she was going to be okay in the long run. Sandra closed her eyes and took deep breaths in and out until her heart stopped pounding and she was able to steady herself. Her next move was obvious. She would go to LA, find out what exactly happened, and be by Claire's side.

    Of course, LA was a little over an hour's drive away from Costa Verde, and she wasn't sure how long she would have to be there. Before leaving, she put some food in Mr. Muggles' bowl and topped up his water dish, stopping to give him a pat on the head and murmur a word of reassurance to him as she did so. She packed up her wallet, her phone, and a couple of honey-nut granola bars into her purse before heading out the door, climbing into her car, and hitting the road.

    The drive to Los Angeles was the longest 67 minutes of her life. Her brow was furrowed as she peered through the windshield at the traffic piled around her on the interstate, her teeth worrying against her bottom lip and her fingers drumming anxiously against the steering wheel. She must have checked the digital clock on her dashboard a hundred times, and every time she had to stop at a red light, she pulled her phone out of her purse and checked for messages. For the first leg of her journey, no updates came. That probably should have brought her some comfort-- _no news is good news,_ wasn't that the saying?--but every time she checked her phone to find no new messages, she only grew more tense. Then, just after passing a sign that told her she was only five miles outside of LA, her phone vibrated. At the next red light, just outside city limits, she checked her phone and saw not a text message from her ex-husband, but rather a news alert: _"Fire at LA General Hospital"_.

    Breath dissolving in her lungs, Sandra glanced up through the windshield, squinting past the thick Los Angeles fog at the city before her. Sure enough, somewhere in the distance, a plume of smoke curled into the red-tinted sunset sky.

    "Oh, no…" she muttered, throat constricting with terror. "Oh, no, no, no…"

    She slammed her hand against the car horn, letting it blare out an angry shout at the vehicles piled up ahead of her. The moment the light at the intersection turned green, she swerved toward the road that led into LA. Once she was within city limits, she didn't slow down once as she followed the trail of smoke through the city toward the hospital. She ran right through several red lights, barely even registering the beeps of protest from the vehicles she shared the road with and desperately laying on her own horn to ward pedestrians away from her. All she could think of was getting to that hospital before it all went up in flames and she lost her daughter all over again.

    But Los Angeles was a big city. By the time she arrived at the general hospital, the fire was out and the building, blocked off by police tape and a line of security guards and news reporters, was reduced to a smoldering wreck. Her heart hammered as she pulled up down the block from the building, where several other cars were parked up and down the street with people clustered around and chattering nervously amongst themselves. Grabbing her purse and slinging it over her shoulder, she jumped out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her, then ran down the sidewalk toward the hospital as fast as her less-than-athletic legs could carry her.

    "Claire!" she yelled, ducking around a roadblock that had been set up between the line of parked cars and the area surrounding the hospital. She had no idea if her voice was loud enough to reach her daughter's ears, if she was even present and conscious to hear it, but she cried out nonetheless. "Claire, honey, where are you?"

    There was an even bigger crowd across the street from the hospital, where a row of ambulances were lined up. Over by the burnt building, two fire trucks and a news van were parked outside, and paramedics and firefighters shouted to each other while security guards forcefully herded civilians away from the building. A sharp arthritic ache shot up her legs as she ran, and she came to a stumbling halt amidst the crowd, falling forward and catching herself against a telephone pole after swerving to avoid bumping into someone. Pulling in a shaky, gasping breath and then letting it out in a frantic rush of air, she straightened up and glanced between the building and the ambulances parked across the street. It seemed like most people were over by the ambulances … if her daughter was anywhere, that was probably where she would be.

    "Excuse me," she muttered to the other civilians crowding the area as she hurriedly weaved her way between them. "Sorry. Oh--pardon me, I'm coming through."

    Despite her mumbled apologies, she barely registered the sensation of strangers' shoulders bumping up against her. Her attention was diverted to scanning the crowd for her daughter. She ended up getting bumped around by the crowd as they shuffled to and fro, and as she was approaching one of the ambulances she got turned around somehow. There were so many people, and she was already overwhelmed by the intensity of the situation, and… she couldn't see Claire anywhere. _Oh, god,_ she thought, an icy grip of dread clenching her heart. _What if she's still in that building? What if those paramedics are about to pull her body out of the wreckage?_

    Then, muffled and distorted but recognizable in a heartbeat, a voice rang out from behind her.

    "Mom!"

    "Claire?" Heart jumping, Sandra looked over her shoulder to see her daughter sitting up in a stretcher, a breathing mask covering her nose and mouth and a ghastly burn covering half her face. Behind her were Noah and two young people who she vaguely recognized as Claire's children, who Noah had spoken about and shown her pictures of but never properly introduced her to. The boy was standing next to Noah, while the girl was sitting on the edge of another stretcher, swinging her legs back and forth. A doctor stood over Claire as well, pressing a cloth to her facial burn.

    When their eyes met, Claire broke into a grin, and she swung herself around as though to jump off the stretcher and run to meet Sandra, but the doctor clamped his hand down on her shoulder and murmured something about staying still. Sandra rushed forward, tears springing up in her eyes at the sight of her daughter still alive but in such an awful condition. Letting out a gleeful laugh, Claire spread her arms and leaned forward; when Sandra reached her, they locked together in an embrace.

    "God, it's good to see you," Claire said, her unburned cheek pressed firm against the fabric of Sandra's sweater. "I hope you weren't too worried about me."

    "Too worried?" Sandra shook her head, combing a trembling hand through Claire's singed and ragged hair. "Sweetie, you're hurt so bad… how could I not worry?"

    "Yeah, that's true," she agreed with a wry chuckle. When she pulled back, Sandra could see pain etched across her face, even though she kept smiling. "But I'm alright now. The doctors say I'm gonna be fine in a few days… well, mostly fine."

    Her tone and expression darkened at the end of that sentence, and Sandra followed her daughter's gaze down to the lower half of her body. Claire sat on the edge of the stretcher, legs dangling off the edge; sticking out from under the white sheet that was draped over her, one burn-marked bare foot was visible. Her other foot--or rather, the whole lower half of her other leg--was nowhere to be found.

    "They, uh, had to amputate my leg from the knee down," she supplied, lifting and lowering the shortened limb as she spoke. Concealed by the sheet, the stubby shape of the top half of her leg moving up and down looked almost like it could have been an optical illusion, but there was no doubt that it was real. "It had nothing to do with the fire--the surgery was already done by the time the fire started. Dad can tell you about it later, if he's up for it."

    Noah flinched at that, and he opened his mouth only to clamp it shut again without saying anything. His hand rested on Claire's back, occasionally rubbing it in little circles, but his hands dropped away and he folded them behind his back when Claire and Sandra's eyes turned to him. She got the distinct impression that there was a story there, and she'd be sure to get it out of him--once she was absolutely certain her daughter was alright. Turning back to Claire, she took her hand and bent forward to look her in the eye.

    "Are you going to be okay?" she whispered, gaze flickering down to her missing leg and then back up to the charred patch of skin on her face. "This is… this is a serious thing, sweetie. It's not going to be easy adjusting to life after this."

    Claire shrugged, not quite meeting Sandra's gaze. "I've been through worse," she muttered.

    "She said the same thing to me," the young girl next to Noah piped up; the boy nodded in agreement. Just like Claire, the girl wore a hospital gown, although she had Noah's suit jacket draped over her shoulders. Neither of the children had any burns on them that she could see. The girl hopped off the stretcher, wincing slightly as her feet touched the ground, and stepped forward with her hand extended. "Uh, I'm Malina, by the way…" She turned and nodded to the boy next to her. "And this is my brother Tommy."

    "Well, it's nice to meet you," Sandra said, pushing her lips into the shape of a smile despite the dryness constricting her throat and the knot of dread in her gut that refused to unravel. She took Malina's proffered hand and gave it a firm shake. "Noah has told me all about the two of you."

    (That wasn’t entirely true. He had often made passing comments about the twins when they’d spoken, but he kept details about them vague. She didn’t even know whether or not the twins had powers like their mother did.)

    "It's nice to meet you too," Tommy said with a dip of his head.

    The doctor standing over Claire spoke up then, tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention.

    "We're going to be setting up a temporary shelter for patients on the mend, then begin transferring them to a different medical facility in the morning," he announced. Turning to look between Noah and Sandra, he went on: "All family members will be asked to keep their distance while the patients are being looked after; we'll keep you posted on visiting hours."

    "What?" Tommy protested. "Come on, that's not--"

    "It's okay," Malina interjected, looking her brother in the eye and squeezing his hand. "We'll see you again soon."

    Tommy clenched and unclenched his jaw, looking like he wanted to object again, but then he sighed and gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, I guess me and Gramps will catch you and Mom on the other side."

    The young twins exchanged a melancholy smile. There was something behind their eyes that Sandra didn't quite understand, but for a moment she was almost reminded of the confusion that used to fill her head after Noah's coworker would extract troublesome memories from her mind. Then they hugged, pulled away from each other, and muttered a goodbye to each other as the doctor laid a hand on Malina's shoulder and guided her towards a partially constructed tent a few yards away. Claire sighed, drawing her leg up to her chest, and glanced between her parents.

    "Like she said, this isn't a goodbye or anything," she told them. "You'll probably be able to see me again tomorrow morning. So, um… goodnight, I guess."

    Noah sighed and gave her a sad half-smile, stepping forward and bringing his hand up to cup the unburnt side of her face. "Goodnight, Claire-bear," he said softly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

    He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then stepped back and let Tommy give her a hug. Finally, she and Sandra exchanged another brief but tight embrace before the doctor came back and took hold of the handles of her stretcher.

    "I'd recommend you lie back down," he told her. "We might have to put you back under so we can stitch up some of your burns."

    "Right, sure," she said. She shuffled around and began to lower herself into a laying position, then paused, glancing over her shoulder at Noah. "Wait, Dad… who else have you told about what happened?"

    "I called your brother and told him about it," he replied. "And I think Angela already knows what happened, but I'll phone her tomorrow just to make sure."

    Claire nodded, a thoughtful look crossing her face. After a beat, she asked, "Do you think you could call Gretchen too? There's something I need to talk to her about."

    Sandra raised her eyebrows at that--although she had been pleasantly surprised when Claire's old friend from college had dropped by to visit the day before, the awkward atmosphere between the two women had been painfully obvious, and she hadn't expected them to actively seek each other out again so soon. Noah, meanwhile, seemed quite nonplussed by the request.

    "Of course, sweetheart."

    "Thanks, Dad," she said, and for a brief moment the pain in her eyes was gone and she smiled as brightly as she used to when she was in high school and nobody knew a thing about superhuman abilities. "I love you. You too, Mom," she added, turning her bright gaze onto Sandra.

    Sandra nodded, throat clogged with emotion; Noah laid a hand on her back as he murmured another goodbye--or rather, _goodnight_ \--to Claire. Then the doctor gave them both a polite but curt nod, and began pushing Claire's stretcher over toward the plastic tent. Sandra watched with a tearful smile on her face and an ache in her heart as her daughter vanished into the crowd.

    Once Claire was gone, Tommy turned to Noah. "I think Mom and I are gonna go back home," he said, nodding toward another woman who hung back amongst the crowd a few feet away. "Keep us posted, okay?"

    "Of course I will," Noah replied, retracting his hand from Sandra's back so he could give Tommy a pat on the shoulder. "And if anything else happens, you call me, okay?"

    Nodding, Tommy turned and ran over to the other woman, who looked to be in her late forties or early fifties. One of her shirt sleeves was rolled up to reveal bandages wrapped around her arm, but apart from that she seemed in good shape. With one last smile and wave in Noah's direction, Tommy looped his arm through the woman's, then closed his eyes. The two of them disappeared in a flash of colourful light.

    Sandra blinked, her initial surprise quickly fading into understanding--of course, nothing about anyone having powers should surprise her at this point, especially not when it was Claire's child. She instead turned her attention to Noah, who had his back turned to her so he could stare at the tent where a multitude of patients in various states of injury or illness were being shepherded inside. One patient, who appeared to be struggling a bit against the hold of the nurse who was escorting them to the tent, was covered head to toe in burns. Sandra shuddered at the sight. In the grand scheme of things, she supposed Claire had been lucky to have even survived such an ordeal… but it sure as hell didn't feel like it.

    Clearing her throat, she stepped up beside Noah and almost unconsciously reached out to take his hand. She stopped herself only a moment before her fingertips could brush against the back of his hand--he had his hands tucked into his pockets, and upon noticing that she took it upon herself to stuff her own hands into the pockets of her wool coat. Maybe it was a little early in the season for such attire--she was beginning to feel a little overheated--but cold weather always made her bones ache, so it was better to be too warm than too cold.

    "It's a miracle that she's alright, isn't it?" Sandra murmured. "But her poor leg… how do you think she'll get on with a missing limb? Will she need a prosthetic, or…?"

    "I suppose she will," he sighed. "Angela should be able to cover the expenses for that. It will take some getting used to, but…"

    "…But at least she's alive," Sandra finished; he nodded in agreement without turning to look at her. Letting her own gaze wander back over to the smoldering wreck of the hospital building, she mused, "I wonder what could have started such an awful fire."

    Noah didn't have an answer for that. He just kept staring at the tent. And Sandra, for lack of anywhere else to go, kept standing beside him. And they could have stood there like that for an eternity, as the crowds around them gradually dispersed and the sky above them grew darker, but eventually they had to leave.

    And since neither of them were willing to stray too far from their daughter, they each booked a room at the same hotel a few blocks away from the hospital.

    And, since Sandra got cold and lonely and filled up with dread overnight, she got up and walked down the hall to her ex-husband's room and knocked on the door, and he let her in without a word, and she climbed into his bed and wrapped her arms around him and didn't let him go.

* * *

    Molly thumbed idly through the deck of playing cards, swinging her legs back and forth as they dangled off the edge of the bed. Occasionally she glanced up at the pot on the stove. Little bubbles were beginning to form on the surface of the water; soon she would have to put the lid on the pot and turn off the element. The subtle but pleasant smell of the cooking vegetables made her stomach growl in anticipation. Even if Mohinder didn't think they had enough seasoning, it would probably be a better meal than any of the restaurant food she'd subsided on for the past several weeks. And, more to the point, she was excited at the prospect of sitting down to share a proper meal with Matt and Mohinder. Visiting the coffee shop with them might have been pleasant, if it hadn't been for Mr. Bennet coming along with them. She knew that he was a friend, or something like it, to her surrogate fathers, but he scared her. It would be so much nicer with just Matt, Mohinder, and Molly, sitting around a table together like a family.

    In the meantime… she wondered what her guardians were talking about outside. Although she briefly thought about using her powers to spy on them (or just taking a peek out the window or door, since she couldn't imagine they'd gone far from the tent trailer) she quickly decided against it. Whatever they wanted to talk about, she got the impression that it was something important--and something private, for just the two of them. She just hoped they wouldn't take too long.

    The bubbles sizzling in the pot grew bigger, sending flecks of boiling water springing up and splashing onto the stovetop. Molly jumped to her feet and ran over to place the lid on the pot, then switched the stove element off, just as instructed. With that taken care of, she stepped back and listened to the sizzling sound slowly grow more quiet. Despite the simplicity of the task, she smiled to herself at having accomplished it. _See,_ she thought, _I'm not totally helpless._ Once she remembered more of her previous life, specifically the parts when she would have been in high school and college, hopefully she would begin to feel a little more like the young adult woman that she was. Even without the knowledge of those parts of her life, however, there were still a few things that she was confident that she could do for herself.

    Just then there was a knock on the door. Molly momentarily flinched at the sudden sound, but she thought she recognized the cadence of the knock. Sure enough, when she pulled back the curtains of the window on the side of the trailer, she saw Mohinder standing on the front step. For an instant she perked back up. Then her eyes landed on what--or rather, who--he was holding in his arms, and she froze in place, breath catching in her throat and her blood running cold.

    Matt's head lolled to the side, his eyelids drooping half-shut and his mouth dangling partially open with a trickle of blood running down his cheek from his lips. His arms dangled loosely at his sides. He was very still. Blood--his blood--decorated the front of his shirt, bright red against faded off-white, and it stained Mohinder's clothes where his side was pressed against the scientist's chest. She couldn't tell whether or not he was breathing.

    "Matt!" she shrieked. Mind going blank with panic, she slammed her fists against the window of the trailer. Mohinder caught her gaze through the window and jerked his head toward the trailer door. Swallowing hard, she reached over to unlock the door and pull it open.

    Mohinder stepped through, expression grim and stony, and he didn't even stop to look at Molly as he marched to the bed and laid Matt down on it. He rolled up his sleeves and strode over to the sink to wash his hands before circling back around to the bed. Looking at him from behind, she realized with a jolt that the back of the jacket he wore was torn and tattered. His stride was steady, with no hint of injury, but still… What had happened to them?

    "We need to stop the bleeding," Mohinder said, looking over his shoulder at Molly. He stripped off his torn jacket as he spoke, revealing that his shirt had a hole in the back too, but the skin beneath it looked unharmed. "Come help me put pressure on the wound."

    For a moment Molly stood rooted to the floor, unable to do anything but stare in horror at the severity of Matt's injury. A deep gash cut into the right side of his lower chest, exposing a sliver of bone. It almost looked like somebody had tried to cut him in half. Her stomach churned at the sight. Mohinder was a scientist, and he was acting like they could save him, but… there was so much blood, and the cut just went right through him, and… it looked like a fatal wound. It didn't look like the kind of thing he could get better from.

    "Molly, _now_!"

    Mohinder's voice was sharp with urgency, and it startled her into action. Stammering out an apology, she rushed to the bed, where Mohinder was pressing the bloodied zip-up hoodie against the gash in Matt's side. Molly pressed her hands down atop the tattered piece of clothing as well, putting down as much pressure as she could and trying not to throw up from the warm, sticky feeling of Matt's blood beneath her hands. She could smell the blood in the air when she breathed in, and she could almost taste it on her tongue; it made bile rise in her throat. Gulping, she wrenched her eyes shut and tried to hold her breath.

    "That's good," Mohinder told her. "Now, keep it in place until the bleeding has stopped. I'm going to call an ambulance."

    Molly nodded. Without turning to observe him, she heard him move across the trailer, pick up his phone, and dial in a number. She didn't hear the message he left; it was drowned out by the frantic pounding of her heart and the blood rushing in her ears. There was a dizzying swirling feeling in her stomach and a very similar one in her head, and she wasn't sure whether she would pass out or throw up or both. The only thing that kept her from breaking down entirely was the faint but unmistakable rise and fall of Matt's chest beneath her trembling hands. Somehow, he was still alive. She would make sure he stayed that way. He _had_ to stay alive. She couldn't lose him now, not now that they were on the cusp of finally being a family again!

    "Please, Matt," she murmured, voice quivering with emotion as tears stung at the corners of her eyes. "Don't die. You're my hero."

    The steadying warmth of Mohinder's hand folded over her own, and she cautiously opened her eyes to return his gaze. He had a melancholy, contemplative look about him; there was something like nostalgia hidden in his dark eyes.

    "You said a similar thing to him once before," he told her. "When he was injured during the incident at Kirby Plaza in New York. Do you remember that day, Molly?"

     She shook her head. At least, she didn't think she remembered it. So many vague, disjointed memories clouded her head that it was hard to pick out particular events.

    "It was quite an eventful day," he said. "The world as we know it nearly ended. But thanks to a few very brave people, the city and its inhabitants were saved. And Matthew survived, despite how worried we both were for him," he went on, and for a second his lips curled into something resembling a fond smile. "That was when he first came into my life, in fact. If it weren't for that terrible experience, the three of us never would have connected in the way we did."

    "…Do you think he's going to survive now?" she asked in a low voice, although she barely managed to get the words out for her fear of what Mohinder's reply would be.

    Any faint trace of gladness vanished from his face, and he lowered his heavy gaze back to Matt's prone form. Matt’s chest still rose and fell at a surprisingly steady rate, and the blood that stained his clothes and the hoodie and the bedsheets Mohinder laid him down on seemed to have stopped seeping out of him. But beneath the torn and blood-soaked fabric of the hoodie… even without looking at it, her gut clenched at the mental image of his gaping wound.

    "I think he's stronger than many people give him credit for," Mohinder said slowly, and he kept his gaze on Matt and didn't look Molly in the eye as he spoke. "I can't… I can't promise that he will survive, but I can only hope that he will." He paused, letting out a heavy sigh, and looked back up at Molly with guilt etched across his face. "I'm sorry I can't offer you any better assurance. As a scientist, I can't in good conscience tell you things that aren't true."

    "No, I understand," Molly mumbled--and she did, really, as much as it pained her. Then, to distract them both from the dark cloud of dread that hung over their heads: "I think the bleeding has stopped. Do you want to check?"

    "It's better not to check too often; removing the pressure can interfere with the clotting process," Mohinder told her. "I only wish we had cleaner materials to work with… can you check through the cupboards and drawers for any towels?"

    "Alright."

    Upon retracting her hands from the blood-soaked fabric, Molly winced; she first made a detour to the sink to rinse them off before opening up the drawer beside it. Inside, several small tea towels were folded up. Their fabric looked pretty flimsy, and she wasn't sure how effective they would be at soaking up blood compared to the thicker fabric of the hoodie, but they were definitely cleaner. She grabbed as many towels as she could fit in her hands and carried them over to Mohinder, who blinked gratefully at her. He carefully peeled away the bunched-up hoodie, revealing that the wound didn't appear to be bleeding anymore--at least not as much as before--and laid down the tea towels over the injury in its place.

    "When I called 9-1-1, it went to voicemail," he remarked. "I had to leave a message. It sounded like something terrible happened at the hospital. I'm not sure when an ambulance will arrive--if one will at all."

    "Oh." The thick ball of dread in Molly's gut grew tighter. "B-but you know how bodies work, right? You can figure out how to help him?"

    "I have more medical knowledge than an average person," he agreed, "But I'm not a doctor. Peter Petrelli would probably be more useful here than myself."

    "Who's that?"

    "Oh… just someone I used to know," he replied vaguely. "I never did find out what happened to him in the end, but nobody has heard from him in years. I suppose he must have… well. It's hard to say for certain what happened, but he's not around anymore."

    Molly wasn't quite sure what to say in response to that, so she didn't say anything. She hung back, fingers fidgeting anxiously with her shirt sleeves, as Mohinder continued applying pressure to Matt's wound. There didn't seem to be any blood seeping into the tea towels yet, but she supposed Mohinder would know best, and they had to make absolutely sure that the bleeding had stopped because it was better to be safe than sorry. There was the faint smell of something burning from over by the stove, and she realized that the vegetables in the pot must have been getting overcooked, but it hardly even registered as an issue at the moment.

    "Um, is there anything else I can do to help?" she asked after a moment.

    "I'm glad you asked," Mohinder said. "Go fill up a container with warm water and get some soap--make sure your hands are clean!"

    Nodding, Molly rolled up her sleeves and moved to stand over by the sink. After washing her hands, she bent down and took a small cooking pot out from the cupboard under the sink, which she then filled up with hot water. Something occurred to her while the water was running, and her frown deepened.

    "Do you think Malina is going to be alright?" she asked as she set the pot of water down on the bed next to Matt. "If something bad happened at the hospital while she was there…"

    "I thought of that too," Mohinder replied. "I'm not sure how the Bennets are faring right now. We can worry about them once Matt is looked after."

    "I guess," she mumbled, although the edge of concern poking at her heart only grew sharper.

    She doubled back to grab the dish soap off the counter. Mohinder frowned, brows furrowed, when she handed it to him.

    "Is that really the only type of soap there is?" he sighed. "I suppose it's better than nothing, but… Molly, could you do me another favour and look around for bandages and some proper disinfectant? With a wound so large, it's absolutely imperative that it's cleaned properly; an infection spreading would be disastrous."

    "R-right."

    Turning away from Mohinder and Matt, she set about searching through the various cupboards and drawers for any kind of proper medical supplies. If Matt had managed to live by himself in this trailer for so long, he must have had something, right? Still, even as she busied herself, she couldn't stop her hands from shaking, couldn't stop stealing glances over her shoulder at Matt to make sure he was still breathing, couldn't even begin to quell the massive storm of worry within her. If things didn't turn out okay, or maybe even if they did, she felt that her fear would swallow her up altogether.

* * *

    As a rule, Kimiko did not miss work unless she was ill or there was a family emergency. It would be terribly irresponsible of her not to go into work and get her job done, after all, especially since she was in charge at Yamagato Industries. But no more than two hours into her work day, the landline phone on the desk in her private office rang. Glancing up from the spreadsheet she was compiling on her laptop, Kimiko picked up the phone and answered it with as much practiced professionalism as ever.

    "Yamagato Industries, how may we help you?"

    "Uh, hi, Kimiko. Sorry for calling you at work like this, but you weren't answering your cell when I texted you, so…"

    Kimiko blinked, startled to hear her girlfriend's voice. Ji Woo sounded more nervous than usual--no doubt flustered to be making Kimiko use a work phone for a personal call. Still, after the initial surprise settled, a smile spread over her face. She leaned back in her office chair and, pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder, closed her laptop and pushed it aside. As dreadfully unprofessional as it was, she couldn't help thinking that the spreadsheet could wait until another time.

    "No, it's fine," she replied. With the laptop put aside, she took the phone back into her hand; she had to resist the urge to twirl the cord around her finger like a silly schoolgirl. "I left my cellphone at home today. Why are you calling?"

    "Well, uh, I have something to talk to you about." The serious tone in Ji Woo's voice didn't subside, and Kimiko's smile faltered when she realized that her girlfriend sounded closer to anxious or even on edge than simply flustered. "Something important. Can you come meet up with me at the sushi restaurant across the street? I'm there now," she added, the anxiety in her tone giving way to something a little more cheerful. "It'll be like a date, kind of."

    Kimiko raised her eyebrows. "A date," she echoed, and her smile returned just slightly to tug at the corners of her lips. "What time do you want to meet up?"

    "I mean… you heard me, right? I'm at the restaurant right now."

    Kimiko shook her head as she processed her girlfriend's words, brow crinkling with confusion. Surely Ji Woo wasn't really suggesting that they play hooky like a pair of high schoolers? (Not that Kimiko herself had ever gotten up to such misbehaviour as a student, and as far as she knew Hiro hadn't either--not until he'd met Ando, at least. She'd always thought that boy was a bad influence on her brother. But now they were happily married, so perhaps they'd influenced each other better than she'd once thought.) In any case, she was shocked to find herself momentarily tempted by her girlfriend's suggestion, but she hastily pushed the idea to the back of her mind. No, that wouldn't do at all.

    "I'm sorry," she said, and she meant it. "But I'm at work right now. It will have to wait until tonight."

    "It can't wait, though!" There was an underlying note of desperation to Ji Woo's voice that stopped Kimiko in her tracks and made her heart clench. "Look, Kimiko, it's really important, and I don't want to just have to tell you over the phone. Please, come meet me at the sushi place and hear me out."

    Kimiko took a long moment to respond, carefully considering the options laid out before her by her girlfriend's words. The way she saw it, she could either maintain professionalism and shut down the request, or she could indulge her girlfriend. Her ever-sharpened rational mind told her one thing, but her heart told her another, and in the end it was the latter that won out. Kimiko wondered for a moment if she was going soft. Maybe her little brother's return had something to do with that. Watching Hiro and Ando interact earlier that morning, their casual proximity and the loving looks they gave each other, had made her heart ache with an unexpected envy that she had been careful to conceal. Would she ever love and be loved like that? Well, if she ever wanted to attain such a relationship, she supposed she would have to start by doing things for her partner. And that involved making small sacrifices such as skipping out on a day at the office.

    "Very well," she said once she had made up her mind, and on the other end of the line she heard Ji Woo let out a rush of breath she must have been holding in anticipation of her response. "I'll see you in a few minutes."

    She hung the phone up and got to her feet, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear and straightening out creases from her suit jacket--not the one she'd worn the previous night, as that one seemed to have gone missing, but a dark blue one with a subtle purple trim. Then she emerged from her office and strode across the main floor toward the door. She heard her phone ring again from behind her, muffled through her office door, but she ignored it. When she caught a couple of her employees looking at her curiously, she raised an elbow to her mouth and faked a cough.

    "My apologies," she addressed the observing office workers. "I believe I may be falling ill. I'll take the rest of the day off to ensure none of you are infected."

    "It is flu season, isn't it?" one of her employees--an older man with gray-speckled hair--mused. "Take care of yourself, Nakamura-san."

    "You too," she said, giving them a polite bow.

    Another of her employees--this time a nervous-looking young woman--approached her while she was retrieving her scarf from the coatrack by the door. She held the phone from Kimiko's office in her hand, apparently having answered it in her stead.

    "Excuse me, Nakamura-san," she said with a bow, holding the phone towards Kimiko. "Someone wants to talk to you."

    "Tell them to call me back later," Kimiko said, keeping her eyes on the door. "I'm going out for… er, for a meeting."

    Although she felt a faint prickle of guilt for lying twice over about the circumstances of her departure, as well as leaving work in the first place, it was overpowered by the way she itched to see her girlfriend and hear what she had to say. However, the younger woman shook her head and pushed the phone toward her more insistently.

    "It isn't business-related. The caller, Masahashi-san, says he has news about your brother."

    Kimiko's gaze snapped sharply away from the door and toward her employee at that. "What kind of news?"

    "He didn't say," her employee said, "But he sounded serious."

    "Very well," Kimiko muttered, brow creasing with worry as she took the phone from her employee's hands. "Thank you for letting me know."

    She waited until her employee had walked away, then headed back into her private office and shut the door behind her before raising the phone to her ear.

    "Hello?"

    "It's Hiro," Ando said immediately, in lieu of returning her greeting. "He's hurt. Can you come home?"

    "Damn it," she hissed, tossing the back of her head against her office door in frustration. "How did he manage to hurt himself this time?"

    "It… it's complicated," Ando replied. "He was stabbed. He said a zombie did it--a zombie that looked like him."

    "A zombie," Kimiko echoed. "You're kidding me."

    "Look, I don't know if that's what really happened or not, but it doesn't matter!" The anxiety in Ando's voice was palpable, and it brought a twinge of unease to her chest. He must have been telling the truth, she realized--he would never lie about such a thing. "He left your house to go see his family--the wife and kid he lived with in the past after he disappeared--and then he came back with a sword lodged in his stomach. I did my best to treat him, but… I don't know, I'm not any good at treating injuries. I need your help."

    "I don't know how much help I can be with something like that," she said. "But I'll be there as soon as I can."

    Her mind reeled as she set the phone down on its receiver. About three quarters of what her brother-in-law had just said raised far more questions than answers, but one thing was clear: her little brother had gone and gotten himself into trouble again. Big trouble. A heavy sigh escaped Kimiko's lips as she once again turned to leave the office. It seemed that her meeting with Ji Woo would have to wait.

* * *

    If anyone asked her, Shema Bizimungu honestly couldn't say why she drove back out to the lake that night. It was a several-hour drive from Thunder Bay, and if her niece and nephew were still under her temporary care, she never would have left their sides. Not after what had happened at the hospital a couple of days ago. But after the aforementioned hospital visit, as harrowing as it had been, Shema's sister and brother-in-law had been two of several patients to undergo a seemingly miraculous total recovery. After a thorough checkup that confirmed that their bodies were suddenly completely healed, they were allowed to leave, and now they were back home with their kids again. As for Shema, she was back to living alone in the apartment she'd moved into after divorcing her husband.

    She wished she could have just not thought about what had happened. Her sister didn't talk about it, and the kids didn't talk about it either, even though they'd been there. But it was all that anyone else in town could talk about, because what else was anyone going to talk about in Thunder Bay other than how much snow the weather forecast was calling for? Every time she closed her eyes, images of Niki's face flashed across her mind, occasionally accompanied by a twinge of phantom pain where those venomous claws had sliced into her.

    She saw something on the news earlier that afternoon--something about a hospital in Japan getting attacked by some strange people with powers, and the newscasters were speculating about if it was linked to what had happened with Niki's poisonous lookalike. That, Shema supposed, was like the straw that broke down the walls she'd put up around her mind. It was impossible to just not think about it. It had happened, and with that strange and frightening event, her deepest and darkest guilt had resurfaced to peck at her heart like an incessant bird with a sharp beak. (For a brief moment, she thought she saw someone on the TV screen who looked like Niki, but that must have just been her mind playing tricks on her. What would Niki have been doing on the opposite side of the globe?)

    There was only one way she could think of to alleviate her guilt. She didn't understand how or why the woman she and Jeff had traveled with three years ago had turned to water upon being stabbed. She had no idea if that woman was still alive, let alone whether she was still trapped in the lake. But if she was… Shema couldn't try to ignore the past any longer. She had to try to--well, there was no way to fix her mistake, but at the very least she could try to make amends. So now she was driving down the highway at night, heading toward Lake Ghiacciato and mentally rehearsing what to say when she got there.

    The moon was bright that night, even from beneath a cloud cover; its yellowish gleam illuminated the sign on the side of the road announcing that Lake Ghiacciato was 2.5 kilometres away. She kept her eyes peeled for the turnoff, but managed to almost miss it anyway, for how caught up she was in her thoughts. The tires of her car screeched against the hard-packed earth as she swerved off the highway and onto the dirt road that led into the campsite. It was a somewhat bumpy road, but a short one. Within a few minutes, she arrived at the ranger station. It was, unsurprisingly, closed at night; she had to park her car in the parking lot and duck under the car barrier that blocked off the road into the campground. From there, she walked at a brisk pace down the road, bits of loose gravel and patches of snow crunching under her boots. She ran her hands up and down her arms as she walked. Her winter coat was well-insulated, but a shiver crept through her nonetheless. She couldn't say whether it was because of her proximity to the lake, at night no less, or whether it had a more internal source.

    The campground was mostly empty at this time of year, although there were always a few eccentric campers who went out to ski and ice fish. The occasional soft glow and crackle of a campfire or LED lights strung up outside a trailer, accompanied by the quiet chatter of campers, broke through the relative darkness and silence. It had been years since she'd been back to this campsite, but she followed the distant sight of the lake glimmering through gaps in the trees, and with that sight guiding her forward she was able to navigate through the winding paths of the campsite to the beach.

    When she stepped out of the treeline and onto the snow-dusted shore, her breath caught in her throat. There, hovering just above the water, was a man wearing a dirty and tattered suit. Only… when she moved a few tentative steps closer, something about the man made her shudder. He had his back to her, so she couldn't see his face, but there was something about the almost limp way he carried himself, arms dangling loosely at his sides, that reminded her of a corpse dangling from the rafters. There was no rope around this man's neck, though. He was hovering independently, head dipped forward as though looking down into the surface of the lake.

    Shema gulped, heart speeding up from the unsettling feeling the flying man brought her. She briefly considered calling out to him to get his attention, but quickly realized that would be a bad idea. Whatever that man was doing there, her gut told her that he posed a threat--not necessarily to her, but to somebody. And if she alerted him to her presence, then he might become a danger to her as well. So she hung back, standing exposed on the shoreline several feet away from the lake, but close enough to the treeline that she would be able to retreat if need be, and she watched the flying man and waited for him to do something.

    For a long, anxiety-inducing moment, the man did nothing. He just floated there, looking down. Just as Shema began to wonder if he really was dead, and being suspended in the air by some kind of telekinesis, his head jerked upward. She jumped at his sudden movement, biting down on her tongue to keep from gasping. However, he didn't even seem to notice her. Instead, he simply rocketed upwards and took off into the distance at the speed of a jetplane.

    She stared after him, holding her breath, until he disappeared into the night sky. Once she was sure he was gone, she let out a shaky breath, the tension in her muscles releasing. Then she broke into a sprint across the beach until she reached the lake. A thin layer of ice had formed in the middle of the lake, spreading out over most of its circumference, but open water still lapped at the shoreline. A tiny bit of it splashed onto her feet as she drew to a halt at the water's edge, and even through the thick fabric of her winter boots she could feel the shock of its icy temperature. Shema let out a gasp, the shiver she'd felt in her bones earlier returning with a vengeance, but it was laced with a strange sort of misplaced delight. She could almost imagine the splash of the tide against the shore as her old friend reaching out to playfully grab her.

    "Whatever happened to you, Niki?" she wondered aloud with a shake of her head. Bending down, she tugged off her gloves and tucked them into her coat pocket. "And… what happened to the real Niki, if you weren't her? Who were you, really?"

    Upon being met with silence, Shema experimentally dipped her hand into the surface of the lake. The water didn't flinch away from her touch, but it didn't seem to seek her out either. It just kept rolling rhythmically in and out, icy cold as it swirled around Shema's expectant fingers. After a moment, she retracted her hand, shaking off water droplets and flexing her fingers to prevent cold-induced numbness.

    "You are still here, aren't you?" she asked. She surprised herself with the note of worry that crept into her voice. "I don't see where else you could have gone. Or are you not anywhere anymore? Or… do you just not want to talk to me? Because I wouldn't blame you for that."

    Her friend's agonized scream echoed in her ears, making Shema wince. Niki, who she had known when they were younger… not-Niki, who had vanished beneath the dark waters of Lake Ghiacciato three years ago… definitely-not-Niki, who had lunged toward her with poisonous claws… what had happened to any of them? Who were they, if not all the same woman? If none of them were around to reconcile with, how could Shema move on from the lingering guilt over what she had let her ex-husband do?

    "Come on," she urged. "Just talk to me. I know you can--you talked to me from inside the lake before."

    Once again, there was no response. Frowning, Shema pulled back from the steadily lapping waves and waited to see if the water would react in any way. There was no change in its movements when she got to her feet and took a step away from the water's edge, nor when she stepped toward it again.

    "Come on, Niki," she muttered, distress twisting into frustration. "I drove all the way out here… you can't expect me to just turn around and head back."

    When there was once again no response, Shema drew in a sharp breath which she held for a count of seven seconds before releasing it. Then she stepped out of her winter boots and peeled off the woolen socks she wore beneath them, set them aside a few feet further up the shore, rolled up the bottoms of her pant legs, and began wading out into the lake.

    The frigid water covering her bare feet and ankles made her cringe, but she screwed her eyes shut and forged forward. She had no idea what she was trying to do--it was an impulsive decision--but something deep in her gut tugged her toward the middle of the lake. Soon she was submerged up to her calves, then her knees; the water licked at her rolled-up pant legs, which were beginning to loosen and slip back down. It became harder to move forward the further in she went; the water fought against her legs and threatened to drag her down. Occasionally, a floating chunk of ice bumped up against her leg. Still, she kept going.

    By the time she was nearly waist-deep, the water soaking through the fabric of her pants and now the bottom trim of her coat as well, she had reached the ice-covered part of the lake. It was too thin to walk on properly, but too thick to push through and keep wading. Shema stopped for a moment to catch her breath, glancing over her shoulder at the shore behind her, then turned to look back out at the silvery bright ice glistening before her. Gritting her teeth, she hoisted herself up onto the thin layer of ice and began crawling along it on her belly. It creaked and groaned beneath her weight, and she braced herself for it to crack, but the ice grew thicker the further out she went. Before long, it felt strong and sturdy, possibly enough so that she could stand up and walk rather than crawl if she was willing to take the chance (she wasn't). By that point she was only a few metres away from the middle of the lake, where that strange flying man had hovered earlier. Now that she approached that spot, she could see a large gap where dark water interrupted the smooth sheet of ice. Little bits of broken-up ice floated in the water, but… it looked like there was something else floating there too. Something larger.

    Brow furrowing, Shema crawled a few more feet forward across the ice until she was close enough to the yawning watery gap that, when she squinted against the darkness, she could make out what floated within. When she realized what it was, the rush of horror that washed over her chilled her even deeper than the freezing water that was soaked through her legs and lower back; she gasped, eyes going wide.

    The moonlight cast a dim yellow sheen over the back of the man's light brown jacket as he lay facedown, floating just below the water's surface. No bubbles rose from the water to indicate that he was breathing. In fact, although it was hard to tell at first with the way his limp form bobbed up and down with the gentle waves that crested the surface of the lake, he didn't seem to be breathing at all. Then Shema saw it, and the chill within her deepened. Sticking out of his skull, glistening silver in the moonlight and caked with blood, was a jagged chunk of ice.

    "Oh my god," she hissed, recoiling. "H-holy shit."

    For a long moment all she could do was stare, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the corpse. Her heart hammered in her chest. Part of her almost expected him to spring back to life, but of course he didn't--he just floated there, dead. A chill wind blew over the lake, stinging at her legs through her soaked pants, and when she didn't feel the force of the wind against her bare feet she realized with a twinge of dread that they had gone numb. Gulping, Shema flexed her toes in an effort to restore some feeling to her digits. _God, what was I thinking?_ she wondered, still staring at the floating body. _Wading out into the lake… crawling across the ice… with my luck, the ice will crack and I'll end up like that guy._

    With that unpleasant thought entering her mind, Shema shuddered. How a dead body had ended up in Lake Ghiacciato, who he had been, if there was any connection to Niki… she couldn't begin to guess at any of those things. But as long as she was there, she may as well try to free the poor man's body from its watery grave.

    Taking in a deep breath, Shema rolled up her sleeves and crawled the rest of the way to the edge of the gap in the ice. Then, curling her fingers around the edge of the ice sheet with one hand to keep herself from slipping into the water, she reached out for the body with her other hand. She managed to grab him first by a tuft of medium-length dark brown hair; after yanking him over towards her she got a grip on his jacket collar. The ice sheet she crouched upon shifted with a cringe-inducing creak when the body bumped up against it, and she nearly let the body slip out of her grasp, but she clenched her teeth and gave a forceful upward tug to pull the body out of the water like a fisherman reeling in a particularly heavy catch. The body flopped onto the ice and landed faceup, head lolling to the side. For an instant upon seeing him--a white man who looked like he was in his mid-to-late thirties with dark hair that hung into his eyes and stubble around his jaw--Shema thought she recognized him as the man who had saved her at the hospital the day before. But, no, it couldn't be, could it? That would be too much of a coincidence, she decided.

    Another thought crossed her mind then, and she turned to face the dark bobbing waters of the lake with a glare.

    "This had better not be your doing," she addressed the water. She realized how crazy she must have seemed, talking to a lake, but part of her still clung desperately to the idea that Niki was still in there and listening to her. "I mean it, Niki, or whoever you really are. You may have lied about yourself to me and Jeff, but… you're not a killer, are you? Oh, please, tell me you're not a killer!"

    As she spoke, her hand absentmindedly curled around the jagged chunk of ice protruding from the back of the dead man's head. At her final pleading exclamation, the hand clutching the shard of ice tightened into a fist. She felt the ice crunch beneath her hand, and when she retracted her fist to slam it against her leg in frustration, she inadvertently yanked the shard out of his head.

    "Oh, shit!" Shema yelped, tossing aside the blood-caked chunk of ice. Heart pounding, she dipped her hands back into the water to rinse them off. What was she thinking? If she got this man's blood on herself, people would think she…

     The sound of a ragged, waterlogged gasp from behind her snapped her out of her panicked state. Stiffening, she turned to look over her shoulder at the body… just in time to see it lurch upward, sputtering and coughing up water.

     _What the fuck?_

    The body's--or rather, the man's chest heaved. Once he had apparently caught his breath, he looked up at Shema. Recognition dawned in his wide eyes when their gazes met, and he let out a breathy, incredulous laugh.

    "You--" More water dribbled out of his lips when he spoke, and he paused to wipe his mouth with his jacket sleeve. (Were she in less of a state of shock, Shema might have pointed out that his clothes were so soaked that the motion wouldn't do him much good.) "You're the woman from the Thunder Bay hospital. You saved me?"

    "I…" Shema gave a slight shake of her head, unable to summon words onto her tongue. The man blinked at her expectantly from behind the dripping-wet curtain of the bangs plastered to his forehead. "Um, I didn't think I was saving you. But I guess I did."

    He broke into a lopsided grin at that. "Well, thank you," he said, extending a hand for her to shake.

    Not knowing what else to do, she took his hand. He stood up and, before she had the chance to retract her hand from his grip or otherwise warn him against it, pulled her to her feet as well. The ice groaned and shifted under their combined weight, and panic shot through her as it began to crack, but he folded his arms around her and lifted her into the air. Letting out a yelp, Shema instinctively clutched at the back of his jacket as he flew like a bullet across the lake to the shoreline. Within seconds, he touched down on the shore, hiking boots skidding against the frozen sand and sending up a spray of snow around them. When he let go of Shema, her half-numb legs wobbled and gave out beneath her; she staggered backward and nearly fell before the man grabbed her arm and caught her.

    "Woah, be careful," he said. Then, eyebrows knitting together with concern as he glanced down at her soaked-through pants and bare feet: "Are your legs cold?"

    "They've been warmer," she replied. Her mind still felt a lot more numb than her feet did, having just seen a man return from the dead and start chatting merrily with her as though nothing major had happened, but she refrained from telling him that.

    The man cautiously eased off his grip on her, letting go only once Shema was firmly back on her feet. Her rolled-up pant legs had flopped back down to cover her calves and ankles while she crawled across the ice, and her boots still sat a few feet away with her socks tucked inside them, perfectly dry. After taking a moment to catch her breath and steady herself, Shema moved to grab her socks and boots and put them back on.

    "I don't know if we caught each other's names last time," the man said while Shema was sitting down and pulling her socks back on. He combed his fingers through his hair as he spoke, ringing out his bangs and pulling out little flecks of ice. "I'm Peter."

    "Shema Bizimungu," she introduced herself. She paused to flex her feet before slipping them back into her boots, trying to get her circulation going again. "And you're the man who brought a bunch of us back from the dead at the hospital yesterday? Boy, you're really a man of many talents."

    Peter smiled at that remark, letting out a little huff of laughter. Then, as he glanced around the lake and the sky above them, his expression darkened. He muttered something that she couldn't quite make out--something about a girl named Claire, it sounded like.

    "Is something wrong?" she asked him as she fastened the straps on her boots and stood back up.

    "Did you see anything strange when you arrived at the lake?" he asked. "Like, somebody who looked like they were undead?"

    "Well, I don't know about _undead_ , but there was this guy--" She pointed out toward the middle of the lake, right about where Peter had been floating. Come to think of it, was he what the other guy had been looking down at? "--He was hovering in the air just above the water, and his posture was strangely limp. Then he just flew off."

    "Which way did he go?"

    She pointed in the direction that the flying man had disappeared. Peter's anxious frown deepened upon following her gaze toward the treeline.

    "That's southeast," he muttered. "California is southwest…" Then he blanched, sucking in a breath. "Shit. He's not going after Claire next--he's going to New York. He's going after Ma."

    "I'm sorry, what's going on?" Shema asked. "What is all this stuff about an undead guy?"

   Rather than answering her, Peter muttered under his breath some more, combing his hand through his hair as he glanced fearfully around the lake. Shema crossed her arms over her chest, staring expectantly at him. She got the feeling that none of what was going on with him had anything to do with her, but her mind swarmed with questions nonetheless. After a moment, he turned to her with an apologetic shake of his head.

    "I don't have time to explain everything right now," he said. "But… Shema, could you do something for me--a favour?"

    "What kind of favour?"

    "There's a little brook that leads into this lake," he told her, nodding toward the treeline on the opposite side of the lake. "Follow it through the woods for a couple miles, then turn right when the brook turns left by the old maple tree with a split trunk. Then you just keep walking straight ahead, following the path where the earth is tamped down, and you'll find a cabin." As he spoke, he peeled off his jacket and wrung it out, sending an impressive amount of water dribbling onto the frozen beach. "When you get there… if you see Sylar, tell him I'll be back soon. Just tell him--tell all of them not to wait up for me tonight."

    He flashed her a half-smile and then, not giving her the chance to accept or reject his request, propelled himself into the sky just as the man hovering over the lake had done. He took off in the same direction just as quickly, leaving Shema standing on the shore staring up at the night sky and wondering what the hell just happened. She had come to Lake Ghiacciato to resolve things, to reconcile, to maybe get some answers if she could. Instead, the number of questions she had had just increased exponentially. Eventually, she lowered her gaze from the cloudy, moonlit sky, and her line of sight landed upon a slim trickle of water that fed into the lake from the opposite shore. Turn right when the stream turned left, was that what he'd said?

     _Well,_ she thought, _What the hell. It's not like I've got anything better to do._


End file.
